From the beginning of its existence, Izbica was an exclusively Jewish town. It was a phenomenon on the scale of the whole Republic of Poland.

As a result of the demand of the Christian residents, especially merchants and craftsmen, who saw the Jewish population as competition for their business,  Jews from the nearby Tarnogóra were expelled to a farm in Izbica in 1744[1.1].  The expelled Jews, under threat of imprisonment, were not allowed to cross the bridge that lead from Izbica to Tarnogóra.

The first Jews came to Izbica several decades earlier. Initially, Izbica was one of the smallest and least populated towns in the then Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; however, in the second half of the 18th century, the number of inhabitants of the centre slowly grew. Most likely, in the third quarter of the 18th century, there was already a wooden synagogue in the town, and an independent Jewish Community Co-operative was established in 1775[1.2]. The first rabbi of Izbica was Eliezer.  He held the office until his death in 1835[1.3].

In 1827, there were 407 residents in Izbica, all of them of Jewish origin[1.4]. The Jews owned a synagogue, a mikveh, a slaughterhouse, a water mill and a sawmill. Their main sources of livelihood was trade and craft.

In 1839, tzaddik Józef Mordechaj Leiner (1801–1859), a student of Symcha Binem from Przysucha, and Menachem Mendel Morgenstern from Kock, settled down in Izbica. An autonomous Hasidic community began to gather around him[1.5]. His son Jakow Leiner (1828–1878), also considered a tzaddik, was the author and publisher of Beit Yaakov (House of Jacob). Due to Hasidic pilgrimages to the tzaddik's court in Izbica, new shops and inns were established.  In the later years of his office, probably around 1860, Jakow Leiner moved his court to Radzyń Podlaski. There, the greatest representative of the dynasty, Gerszon Chanoch Leiner (1839-1891), took over his property. Hasidic Jews from the region of Izbica and Radzyń were famous for their blue tzitziot; they were even called "blue Hasidim"[1.6]. The tzaddik's descendants who survived the Holocaust emigrated to Israel, where in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, the heir of the Leiners, Abraham Issachar Englard (1905–2005), reconstructed the mansion of the tzaddikim from the region of Izbica-Radzyń.  In 2015, the dynasty was headed by his son Shlomo Josef Englard, and branches in Jerusalem and Boro Park (the USA) were also active.

In 1860, there were 1,450 residents of Izbica, all of them of Jewish origin[1.7]. In 1870, 1800 people lived in the town - only Jews[1.8]. In 1897, there were 3,019 Jews in the town, who constituted 95% of the total population[1.9]. It was a canonical town, almost a shtetl, inhabited only by Jews, with no Catholic church. At that time, there was a saying in the region of Lublin: "Izbica, Izbica - the Jewish capital" (Izbica, Izbica - żydowska stolica)[1.10].

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Zionist movement and the Bund began to develop in the settlement[1.11].

In the early 1920s, Izbica was a small provincial shtetl, inhabited by 90% poor Jews[1.12]. Apart from a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery - kirkut, a mikveh and a ritual slaughterhouse, there were several private beit ha-midrash.  Over the following years, despite the rapid demographic development of the Jewish community, due to the intensification of Christian settlement, the percentage of Jews in the population of the settlement gradually decreased to reach 84% in 1939.

In 1921, Izbica was inhabited by 3,085 people, including 2,862 Jews (92%)[1.13]. In the interwar period, another Hasidic manor was established in Izbica.  Its founder was Rabbi Cwi Rabinowicz, from the family of Symcha Binema from Przysucha. The last rabbi in Izbica before the outbreak of World War II was Landau.

There were 166 Jewish craft workshops in Izbica, mainly tailor shops, as well as many shops located around the Market Square and the main street.  There were also 6 mills owned by Jews in the settlement. The poor population of the settlement was supported by JOINT and Jews from Izbica who lived in the United States. In 1924, Jewish Cooperative Bank (Żydowski Bank Spółdzielczy) was established, there was also the Mutual Credit Society (Towarzystwo Wzajemnego Kredytu) and the Loan and Savings Association (Towarzystwo Pożyczkowo-Oszczędnościowe) in the town[1.14].

In the interwar period, Jewish organisations and political parties developed in Izbica, e.g., Aguda, Zionist Organisation, Bund, Jewish Peoples Party (Żydowska Partia Ludowa). There were also youth organisations, e.g. He-Chaluc (Pionier) and Captain Josef Trumpeldor Scouting Association (Zrzeszenie Żydowskich Harcerzy im. Josefa Trumpeldora)[1.15]. Among social and cultural institutions, the Educational and Cultural Association "Liga" (Stowarzyszenie Oświatowo-Kulturalne "Liga”) operating under the auspices of the Bund, and the Jewish Cultural and Educational Association “Tarbut” (Stowarzyszenie Kulturalno-Oświatowe "Tarbut”) with a Zionist profile were particularly active.  In 1930, a library named after I.L. Perec was established in Izbica.  There were also charitable organisations: Bikur Cholim, which took care of the sick, and Linas ha-Cedek, which supported the poor.  In 1917, Rabbi Landau, who was the head of the municipality, initiated the establishment of an orphanage for Jewish children, which was financed by members of the community[1.16].

After the outbreak of World War II, some young Jews left the town together with the retreating Soviets, who occupied the town after 17 September 1939.  Due to its convenient location by the railway line and the Jewish character of the settlement, already in 1939, the Germans established a gathering point for Jews from all over Poland there. Apart from local Jews, in December 1939, Izbica housed a large group of Jewish displaced persons from Koło and Łódź, and in 1940 and 1941 - also from Częstochowa, Kalisz, Głowno, Konin and Lublin[1.1.11]. At the beginning of 1940, the Judenrat was established in the town.

In September 1941, SS-Untersturmfuhrer Kurt Engels and SS-Rottenführer Ludwik Klem occupied the municipal jail.  From that moment, the so-called  Zamość Gestapo outpost started operating in Izbica.  A year later, it became one of the most important links of Operation Reinhard. Kurt Engels was particularly cruel to the Jewish population. He personally shot many Jews.  He chose his victims while riding around the town on a motorbike[1.17]. Local Jews were initially used to assist with the construction of the airport in Zamość.

With the start of Operation Reinhardt in March 1942, after some of the local population had been transported to the extermination camp in Bełżec, the so-called  "transit ghetto" was established in the settlement.  It was intended for Jews from Bohemia, Moravia, the German Reich and Austria, who were brought there before their final deportation to the death camps in Bełżec and Sobibór[1.18]. The ghetto for the Jews from Izbica was located in the fire station building near a railway line.  The whole ghetto was just that one building, surrounded by barbed wire.  The mortality rate was similar to that in the Warsaw Ghetto.

In the period from March and May 1942,  approximately 12,000 to 14,000 people were resettled to  Izbica. Among the Jews who arrived in Izbica, there were highly qualified professionals: engineers, doctors, economists. Among them, there was a vice-president of Prague (Czech Republic), as well as generals of the Austrian army, professors from Vienna, the Hague, Jena, Heidelberg and Wrocław[1.19]. The largest wave of transport to the death camps took place in October and November 1942.  At that time, Jews from Zamość, Krasnystaw and other towns from that area arrived in Izbica.

On 2 November 1942, Izbica was surrounded by a unit of Ukrainian SS-men from Trawniki and the blue police from Izbica.  Over the following days, Jews were transported to Bełżec and Sobibór.  Several thousand people were gathered in the fire station building[1.20], from where they were rushed in groups to the Jewish cemetery and executed[1.21].

After the liquidation of the transit ghetto, the so-called  residual ghetto was established.  The last Jews from Izbica were deported by the Germans to Sobibór in January and April 1943.  The final liquidation of the ghetto took place on 28 April 1943, when the remaining 200 Jews were transported to Sobibór. Almost all inhabitants of Izbica were killed. Probably only 14 Jews from Izbca survived the Holocaust[1.22].

Halina Błaszczyk (née Babiarz) and her mother Kazimiera Babiarz (died in 1993) were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal. https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/historie-pomocy/fragmenty-wywiadu-z-halina-blaszczyk Before the war, the Babiarz family owned the only Polish mill in Izbica. The family helped Hanan Lipszyc to hide away.  He was kept in a "dungeon" in the yard and then in a timber yard.  Hanan Lipszyc survived and settled down in Israel.

References:

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