First Jews most probably settled in Dąbrowa at the end of the 16th century. A vetting document from 1611 mentions a Jewish innkeeper called David Womberg[1.1]. Another mention of Jews in Dąbrowa comes from 1691 and refers to Jewish girl, Salomea, who was baptised in the local church[1.2]. At the end of the 18th century, the number of Jewish inhabitants increased thanks to the town’s development.

A wooden synagogue was built in the town in 1679. An independent Jewish community was created in 1702. According to historical sources, there were 147 Jewish families living in Dąbrowa in the middle of the 18th century. As time went by, this number was steadily increasing. Jews worked as traders and craftsmen, they produced vodka, beer, and mead and ran inns in Dąbrowa and surrounding villages. At the end of the century, they dominated local trade and crafts. Two schochets were members of the butchers' guild. At that time, local inns were ran by Michoel Moschkowich Boleslawski, Jechiel Radgowski, Mark Otpinowski, Josef Pauka, Szlomo Paski and Szlomo Jakubowic.

Following the Partitions of Poland, the Austrian administration tried to decrease the influence of Jews on the local trade by forcing several Jewish families to settle in the countryside and work in agriculture. At the beginning of the 19th century, Dąbrowa was the residence of tzadiks from the Unger family. At that time, the number of Jews living in the town increased. However, most of them were not very well-off. Most Jews were poor and barely managed to make ends meet; they mostly lived off small-scale trade and craft works.

Members of the Jewish community were isolated from other citizens, but had their own social and cultural institutions. The great majority of Jewish children went to the local cheder. Very few parents sent their children to the public school. In 1893, Baron Maurycy de Hirsz (1831-1896) provided funds for the creation of a secular Jewish school. In the years 1893-1894, 49 children studied there. Fourteen years later, the number grew to 150. Polish was the principal language used in the school, but pupils were also taught Hebrew. In 1908, Rabbi Szabsi Katz opened a yeshiva for 60 students.

At the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement came to Dąbrowa; it proved especially popular among the local Jewish intelligentsia. Leon Mahler became Dabrowa's representative in the Regional Organisation of Zionist Groups in Western Galicia.

During World War I, a typhus epidemic broke out in the town as a result of famine and bad sanitary conditions. Many of the town's citizens, including Jews, died from the disease. The number of Jewish inhabitants of Dąbrowa was also reduced by other events, such as a pogrom carried out in the town towards the end of the war; many Jewish households, shops and workshops were destroyed and some of the community members were beaten down.

Despite several people being arrested under the suspicion of instigating the pogrom, another one took place in April of 1919; this time it was instigated by General Haller’s soldiers. It was also proposed that several smaller villages should be adjoined to Dąbrowa in order to decrease the Jewish majority in the demographic structure of the town. As a sign of protest, the Jewish members of the Town Council resigned from their positions. In the 1920s, the economic status of the Jewish community was steadily deteriorating.

In 1927, a relief fund was created for small entrepreneurs and craftsmen, who constituted the vast majority of the community. At that time, the popularity of the Zionist movement was growing. The number of Zionist parties operating in Dąbrowa is the best testament to the movement’s popularity: Mizrachi, the General Zionists, Poale Zion, and Revisionists. Dąbrowa Tarnowska donated 104 shekels to the 16th Zionist Congress; in 1935, the amount increased to 474 shekels.

Young Jews belonged mainly to Gordonia and Young Mizrachi associations, as well as the Akiva association established in 1921 and Hanoar Hatzioni and Hashomer Hadati (both established in the 1930s). The Agudath established its own cells in Dąbrowa in order to compete with the Zionists for influence over the local community. All parties fielded their candidates in the local elections; in 1921, 1923, and 1938, Jews had their representatives in the Town Council. In 1926, when several smaller villages were incorporated into the district, the number of Jewish councilors decreased.

Jews were elected to the position of the Vice Mayor several times. In the years from 1921-1927, the post was held by Josef Chill and in 1934–1939 – by Jakow Chill.

In the 1930s the cultural life of the Jewish community was thriving. It had its own “Tarbut” school, a library founded by the Zionists before the war, and the “Makabi” sports club (which, however, was soon dissolved due for financial reasons). Despite the fact that the peasants’ movement, which promoted and preached anti-Semitism, was very active in the region, no further pogroms of the Jewish population were organised. Nonetheless, there were some instances of destroying Jewish property and writing offensive slogans, especially in the 1930s.

When World War II began, the situation of Jews from Dąbrowa and other occupied towns deteriorated rapidly. In September 1939, many Jews were transported to labour camps. From December 1939 to March 1940, refugees from Kraków and other territories incorporated into the Third Reich (Łódź and Skierniewice) came to the town. Their number increased in the spring of 1941 and 1942 as a result of massive deportations from the nearby territories to the ghetto in Dąbrowa.

In May 1942, 3,100 Jews lived in Dąbrowa according to the census. At the turn of 1939, the Judenrat organised help for the poorest people. At the beginning of 1942, Germans started shooting Jews on the streets and in their homes. On 28 April 1942, they killed more than 20 people suspected of communist activity. Some of the victims were women and children.

A ghetto in Dąbrowa Tarnowska was created at the beginning of July 1942[1.3]. It housed Jews from Dąbrowa as well as people deported from nearby towns and from Łódź and Skierniewice. The area of the newly created “Jewish district” was surrounded by a wall.

The first mass deportation from the ghetto was carried out as early as on 17 July 1942. German forces came to the town in great numbers and surrounded the area of the ghetto. At dawn, Germans started casting people out of their homes with help from the Jewish Police Service. They eventually gathered ca. 1,800 people, who were forced into train cars and sent to the death camp in Bełżec. Ca. 100 people were killed on the spot, on the streets of Dąbrowa and on the Jewish cemetery.

The Jews who survived the deportation were forced to register. Germans sent a group of men to a forced labour camp. Women and children still living in the ghetto were forced to perform various manual works, including paving the streets and farming.

Another deportation took place on 18 September 1942. Having experienced the tragic events of July, many Jews had escaped from the ghetto and were hiding in the nearby forests. In the town, Germans caught several hundred people – between 500 and 800, according to different sources – and sent them to gas chambers in the Bełżec death camp. Ca. 10 people were murdered in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, including Dr Neuberger, the president of the Judenrat.

The ghetto in Dąbrowa was finally liquidated in October of 1942. For several days, Germans would search through all buildings and drag out people trying to hide. The victims of this “hunt” were sent to the camp in Bełżec. Several dozen Jews were shot at the cemetery. According to eyewitnesses, Germans would step on the victims’ stomachs and shoot them in the head.

Only several dozen Jews survived the liquidation and were forced to clean up the ghetto. With time, some of them were sent to Tarnów. On 20 December 1942, about 20 members of the Jewish Police Service and their families were murdered at the Jewish cemetery by German military policemen. Before being killed, they were forced to strip naked and enter holes dug out in the ground. They were then shot by the executioners.

It is estimated that ca. 50-150 Jews came back to Dąbrowa after the town’s liberation. Most of the survivors moved to bigger towns or abroad. Many of those who came back from their war-time exile eventually migrated to other countries, especially in the year 1968. Among the migrants were: Henryk Fas (a professor of mathematics in Rio de Janeiro) and Dr Karol Horn, who moved to Israel with his Czech wife Eliza. Their second daughter, Ruth, also moved to Israel with her husband Paul Safier; they settled in a town called Holon. Frida Licht-Landau moved to Bern in Switzerland. Esther Porat-Landau and her son Dawid Landau, Izaak Stieglitz and Dr Leon Schindler also migrated to Israel. Juda Schindler, a professor of medical sciences, left for Mexico and became a lecturer at one of the universities located in the country’s capital. He also did some academic work in Jerusalem. Marcin Adler and his brother moved to Denmark. Israel was also the destination chosen by Henryk Margulies, the owner of the plot of land where the Lubomirski Palace had been built, and by several other people: Henoch Weiser with his family, Mojżesz Wolfowicz with his wife Barbara, Pinkas Schlesinger, Chaja Goldman, Henoch Singer and his brothers-in-law: Chaim Gruszow and Aron Werker, as well as two daughter of Edmund Mitzner, who had been killed by Germans. Cesia and Hana Metzger started a new life in the USA, which were also the destination of Edmund Mitzner, who, right before leaving Poland, had sold his house located in the town square to the Seweryn family. Lawyer Maksymilian Kahane’s two daughters left for South Africa right after the war. Dawid Beler and his son moved to Germany. The last Jew still living in Dąbrowa died in 2005[1.4].

Bibliography

• Dąbrowa Tarnowska. Zarys dziejów miasta i powiatu, Warsaw – Kraków 1974.
• Dombrowa Tarnowska, [in] Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. Poland, vol. III, Western Galicia, Silesia, eds. A. Wein, A. Weiss, Jerusalem 1984, pp. 107–111 [online] http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Pinkas_poland/pol3_00107.html [dostęp: 10.06.2014].
• Hudyka A., Zapomniana historia Dąbrowy Tarnowskiej [online] http://www.fzp.net.pl/historia/zapomniana-czesc-historii-dabrowy-tarnowskiej [Accessed: 10.06.2014].
• Rzeszuto J., Żydzi Dąbrowscy, Dąbrowa Tarnowska 1993.