There are no historical sources which could help determine the exact date of the beginning of Jewish settlement in Grodzisk. In his 1917 book The Church and Parish in Grodzisk, Mikołaj Bojanek states that Jews had been living in Grodzisk “for over 500 years” ”[1.1]. However, the author does not mention the source of this information and therefore it should be treated as his own assumption.

The first indisputable mention of Jewish presence in Grodzisk dates back to the second half of the 16^th century and refers to a Jewish levy collected by the local provost. However, this information does not help determine the number of Jews living in Grodzisk at the time. More detailed data comes from the second half of the 18^th century. Jan Klemens Mokronowski, a parish priest active in the years 1750–1769, allowed the local Jews to build a house of prayer in Grodzisk and establish a cemetery outside the town[1.2]. It is not certain whether an official Jewish community existed in Grodzisk at the time, as the Jewish population in the area was scattered around many localities. Most certainly, an independent Jewish community existed in Grodzisk at the end of the 18^th century (1793–1794) [1.3].

The area of Grodzisk experienced an influx of Jews after the Third Partition of Poland. The increase in the number of Jewish residents of Grodzisk was associated with a patent issued by the Prussian king in 1797, which allowed Jews living in the town to engage in crafts and trade, and at the same time limited Jewish settlement in the countryside[1.4]. During the wave of Jewish migration to towns and cities, many of them settled in Grodzisk, which is clearly reflected in statistical data. In 1797, 125 Jews lived in Grodzisk (51.2% of the total population), in 1800 – 301 (82.9 %)[1.5]. Twenty years later, 444 followers of Judaism lived in the town, constituting as much as 89.2% of the town's population[1.1.4]. This influx of Jews to Grodzisk, combined with a high birth rate, soon resulted in overpopulation. In 1828, the residents of Grodzisk lived in 44 houses, and there were 136 Jewish families in the town[1.6]. The blame for such a state of affairs was put on the municipal authorities, which allowed Jewish families to settle in the town without limitations despite the legal act of 1822, obliging towns to create separate Jewish districts. It was even planned to resettle some Jewish families to other towns and cities, but these projects never came to fruition[1.1.4].

In the 19^th century, Grodzisk was still a private town, which led to numerous conflicts between the heir and the townspeople. The owner of the town, Antoni Mokronowski (d. 1830), often sought to reach a consensus with the local population, but the conflict with the Jewish community lasted for several years. Mokrowski leased Jews a plot of land housing a synagogue, a bathhouse, a school, and a cemetery, for the annual fee of 500 złotys. At some point, however, the Jewish community ceased to pay the due amount. On 31 July 1824, the owner sent the community an official document, warning the Jews that failure to settle their arrears would result in the ban on further burials at the cemetery and foreclosure of the leased plot. On 9 August, an agreement was reached. The contract defined a new lease fee, amounting to 300 złotys. The Jewish community, however, began to question the validity of the agreement, claiming that the document had not been approved by the government and arguing that the value of the leased land should amount to 100 złotys. The case was brought before the Civil Court of the Mazowieckie Province, which dismissed the Jewish claims on 11 March 1829. The court set the fee at 300 złotys. The community appealed the verdict, but the higher instance – the General Prosecutor's Office – dismissed the appeal on 11 March 1829[1.7].

In the second half of the 19^th century, the Jewish community developed very fast and made a number of investments. The most important of these was the construction of a new wooden synagogue with concrete foundations, which was designed as early as 1853. The construction, which cost 2,024 roubles and 79 kopeks, was completed in 1864. A fence around the cemetery was built in 1851 for 541 roubles and 83 kopeks. These investments were a reflection of the strength and entrepreneurial nature of the Jewish community and its authorities, that is the Synagogue Supervision headed by Rabbi Majlech Sapior[1.8].

At the time, Grodzisk boasted several Jewish religious schools and an elementary school maintained by the Jewish community. In the 19^th century, illiteracy among the Jews of Grodzisk was a marginal phenomenon, which is confirmed by the signatures submitted under the declaration of loyalty to the National Government at the beginning of May 1831. All 42 Jewish townspeople who signed the document placed their signatures using their first names and surnames. It should be noted that two thirds of the signatures on the declaration were placed by Jews, who continued to be actively involved in patriotic activities for years to come.

A characteristic feature of the local community was the strong influence of Hasidism. The Hasidic movement gained particular strength when Tzaddik Elimelech Szapiro (died in 1892 in Grodzisk Mazowiecki) founded his own dynasty in Grodzisk. He was the grandson of the Maggid of Kozienice and the son of the founder of the Mogielnica dynasty, as well as a descendant, on his mother’s side, of the famous Elimelech of Lizhensk and the Seer of Lublin. Szapiro owned his own manor house and a school in Grodzisk. According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, the Hasidic dynasty of Grodzisk still exists in Israel[1.9].

In the 19^th century, the Jewish community gave the town a unique character. There were no bourgeois farmers in Grodzisk and the population was mainly engaged in crafts and trade, which was closely related to its ethnic composition. For comparison, Jews constituted 59.3% of the population in nearby Mszczonów, 40.3% in Skierniewice and 8.8% in Błonie. At the end of the 19^th century, Grodzisk started to dynamically develop and began to transform into an industrial town. Along with economic changes, social transformations began to take place. The proportions between the Jewish and the Catholic population changed. The percentage of Jewish residents decreased, and in 1897 the Jewish community constituted 76.5% of the population. Jews from smaller towns in western Mazovia, including Grodzisk, migrated to larger urban centres, mainly to Warsaw.

In the first years of the 20^th century, the Jewish population actively participated in the political and social life of the town, including the opening of a private Jewish school in 1900, where the Polish language was also taught.

The outbreak of World War I hampered the development of the town, which also affected the Jewish community. The Russian army was generally distrustful towards the Jewish community, which resulted in two displacement campaigns. A total of 1,904 people, that is two thirds of the local population, was deported. Those events significantly contributed to the decrease in the number of Jewish residents of the town. There is no wartime statistical data available, with the earliest post-WWI figures coming from 1921. At that time, 2,756 Jews lived in Grodzisk, constituting only 24.5% of the town's total population.

In the interwar period, crafts and trade remained the principal activities of Jews. Jewish artisans established their own craft guilds and professional organisations. Jews controlled 51% of Grodzisk’s artisan production. The most popular professions among the Jewish community were tailors, shoemakers, stocking-makers, tricot-makers, and butchers. They worked in small, poorly equipped workshops, using methods reminiscent of medieval handicrafts. Their economic situation was very difficult. Low prices, strong competition and the economic crisis did not allow for modernising the methods of production. Apart from workshops, Jews also ran small industrial plants (e.g. tanneries). There were also many Jewish labourers in the town, many of whom belonged to the Bund[1.1.4]. In the 1930s, several workers’ strikes were organised in Grodzisk. On 24 February 1933, a strike was held in Mejloch Hajdenkruk’s tannery and on 2 March 1933 – in Fiszel Lewinzon’s tannery[1.10].

In the interwar period, Jews played a relatively small role in the town’s local government. The first post-war city council, elected in January 1917 and supplemented in the 1918 by-election, included 10 Jews (out of 30 councillors), but later their number significantly decreased[1.1.4]. No information is available on the number of Jewish councillors in the 2^nd and 3^rd City Councils. In the 4^th City Council (elected in March 1926) and the 5^th City Council (elected in June 1929), 3 of 24 councillors were Jews (2 Zionists and 1 Orthodox Jew). In the 6^th City Council, elected in May 1934, there was only one representative of the Jewish community (Orthodox). The last City Council elected before the war, on 14 May 1939 (inaugurated on 1 July 1939) included 4 Jews: Motel Fuster, Hacker Zygmunt, Abram Szulman – unaffiliated, and Szmul-Berek Krasnebrader – Poale Zion-Right[1.11].

In September 1939, immediately after seizing the town, Germans began to persecute the Jewish population. The first ordinances obliged the town to mark Jewish shops and apartments, while Jews themselves were required to wear armbands with the Star of David. On 30 October, a seven-person Judenrat was appointed with the following members: Chaim Jakubowicz (chairperson), Bronisław Kampelmacher, Wolf Szerpski, Mendel Goldfarb, Lejba Alefrant, Fiszel Płachta, Icek Zyman, and Abram Szulman. According to the data presented by the Council of Elders, at the end of 1939 there were 3,255 Jews (ca. 1/5 of the population) in Grodzisk, a third of whom were children under the age of 16. As early as December 1939, Jews displaced from the territories incorporated into the Reich, mainly from Greater Poland and the western part of Mazovia, arrived in Grodzisk. Another group of 1,103 people arrived on 14 January 1940. It included Jews from the Province of Poznań, later renamed to Reichsgau Wartheland; they hailed from Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Aleksandrów Łódzki, Szamotuły, Konstantynów Łódzki, Łódź, Wronki, and many other localities. A group of another 543 Jews came to Grodzisk Mazowiecki in August 1940. People displaced from Krakow arrived in the second half of the year.

On 1 December 1940, Jews were expelled from their apartments and moved to the ghetto, which was established in the area of Joselewicza, 11 Listopada, Piłsudskiego, Legionów, and Limanowskiego streets. Jewish property was seized by the German-appointed Receivership Administration of Jewish Property in Grodzisk Mazowiecki[1.12].

In January 1941, the population of the Grodzisk Ghetto increased by 1,200 Jews displaced from Brwinów, Nadarzyn, Podkowa Leśna, and Milanówek. Before the liquidation of the ghetto in February 1941, ca. 6,000 people were imprisoned there[1.1.12]. On 12–20 February 1941, the ghetto in Grodzisk was liquidated. The prisoners were transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. Only a small group of Jewish craftsmen remained in the town, but in July 1941 they were also sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jews transported to Warsaw in subsequent transports were later sent to the German Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka.

Bibliography:

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