Jews started to settle in Łuków at the turn of the 15^th century, before Łuków was granted town rights, or, as some sources suggest, even earlier, in the mid-13^th century. Even though no sources documenting the history of the local Jewish community have been preserved, it is assumed that an independent religious community was established in Łuków in the 15^th century. In the middle of the 16^th century, it was already a big, well-organised community with great significance for the economic development of the town. The Jews of Łuków suffered major losses during the Cossack Uprising led by Khmelnytsky (1648), the pogrom organised by Muscovites in 1655 (ca. 1,000 victims[1.1]), and the Swedish Deluge (1657), when Swedish and Transylvanian troops murdered ca. 1,000 Jewish people.

The reconstruction of the Jewish community in the 1760s and 1770s was facilitated by the fact that in 1659, King Jan Kazimierz Waza confirmed a number of privileges granted to Jews, for example the right to acquire real estate, freedom to conduct business, and the right to produce and sell alcohol. In the years that followed, these privileges were confirmed by subsequent monarchs. In 1676, Łuków had one of the biggest Jewish communities in the region. The local Jewish Community Co-operative was one of the most influential in the entire Lubelskie Province; it encompassed as many as 163 neighbouring towns and villages.

Toward the end of the 18^th century, Jews lived in the Market Square and on Kozia Street. The centre of the Jewish district was situated between Brzeska, Kościelna and Trzebieska Streets. The synagogue (at the corner of Staropijarska and Bóżnicza Streets), the beit midrash, and the mikveh were all situated on Trzebieska Street. Jews also lived on Browarna Street and rented three taverns located in the Jurydyka (settlement right outside a royal city) of Cieszkowizna.

At the turn of the 19^th century, the Jewish community of Łuków quickly grew in size. Soon, Jews constituted the majority of the town's population and dominated it economically. In the mid-19^th century, the community owned a synagogue, a brick beit midrash, a two-room wooden shelter and a wooden mikveh on Staropijarska Street.

In the 19^th century, Hasidism was very popular among the Jews of Łuków. There were a few shtibelekh in the town, which were important meeting points of supporters of the tzadikim of Kock, Radzyń, Aleksandrów Łódzki, and Góra Kalwaria. A mansion of tzaddik Hersz Morgenstern, a great-grand son of the tzaddik of Kock, the famous Menachem Mendel Morgenstern, was built in Łuków in 1906. There was also a popular yeshiva operating in the town; it was run by Szmuel Szlomi Braun, who in 1901 became the rabbi of Łuków.

At the very beginning of the 20^th century, the town experienced a period of relative economic prosperity, which favourably influenced the economic situation of Łuków's Jewish residents. In 1906, a well-known shoe factory from Warsaw was relocated to Łuków and a great number of Jewish workers found employment there. There were also numerous Jewish political parties established at the time (e.g. Bund). The Zionist movement developed, too. Before the end of World War I, the Jewish community already had its own representatives within the local government.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the economic situation of the Jews of Łuków improved rapidly. Out of all 530 businesses active in the town, 85% were run by Jews. There were several Jewish mercantile and craft associations, as well as craft guilds. Jewish political life flourished as well. In the 1920s, the following political parties were active in the town – the General Zionist Party, Poale Zion Right, Mizrachi, Folkspartei, Aguda; there were also numerous left-wing and Zionist youth organisations such as Tsukunft, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, Hehalutz, Betar. The most influential of these was the orthodox Aguda, which, up until 1931, had almost exclusive power over the Jewish Community Co-operative. In both the 1919 and the 1927 Elections to the Municipal Council, Jewish politicians won 10 of the 24 seats. In 1927, a local newspaper called Dos Łukower Vort was issued in the town; in 1931, the local community also published several issues of the Łukower Nayes magazine. There was also a Jewish workers' sports club in the town – it was called Hapoel.

During the interwar period, local Jewish children could attend four private chederim, at least two Talmud Torah schools ran by the Co-operative, and a private four-grade school operating under the auspices of the Mizrachi party. In 1923, the latter gained the status of a public state school. Some children also attended the Elementary School No. 1; they made up about 50% of the school’s students. A four-grade elementary school, run by the TSIShO (Central Yiddish School Organisation), was active in Łuków from 1928 until the mid-1930s, when it was closed due to financial difficulties. There were also a few Jewish libraries in the town, for example the Folk Jewish Library, which had a reading room.

Towards the end of the 1930s, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, some industrial plants located in Łuków were closed, which resulted in a major increase of the rate of unemployment and in deterioration of the economic situation of the local Jews. Anti-Semitic attitudes started to gain ground – Polish nationalists called for the boycott of Jewish stores and craft workshops; there were also some instances of Jewish-owned building being devastated. The last rabbi of Łuków was Aron Nuta Frajberg.

Having seized the town on 19 September 1939, German occupational forces shot several dozen Jews and burned down 25 Jewish houses in retaliation for the attempts to defend the town. A few days later, the Soviet Army entered Łuków; upon their retreat in October 1939, 500 Jews fled the town.

When German troops once again took control of the town, they carried out another execution – about 70 Jews were murdered. Between November and December 1939, approx. 2,500 displaced Jews were sent to live in Łuków. They came from Serock, Nasielsk and Suwałki. In 1940, ca. 1,000 Jews from Mława arrived to the town, while in May 1942, more than 2,000 Jews were displaced from Slovakia. In May 1941, a Jewish district was formed in Łuków – it consisted of three separate quarters. At first the ghetto was open, but in the middle of September 1942, a wall was built around it. On the eve of its liquidation, the ghetto housed ca. 11,500 people.

A series of deportations of Jews took place in October and November 1942. In total, ca. 7,000 Jews from Łuków were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, while another 2,200 people were shot on the spot. On 28 October, a transit ghetto was opened in Łuków for the purposes of the process of deportation; 4,500 Jews were transported there from such places as Adamów, Wojcieszków, Kock, Tuchowicz, Trzebieszów, and the districts of Stanin and Ulan. Some of them were shot on the spot, while others were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp.

When the deportation was over, a small ghetto was left in the town. It was situated between Kanałowa, Jatkowa, and Międzyrzecka Streets and served as a forced labour camp. It housed a group of Jewish workers who were employed in the Gestapo warehouses and a German company purchasing egg and poultry. In December 1942, ca. 500 prisoners of the ghetto were shot dead. The remaining ca. 4,000 Jews were transported to the Treblinka extermination camp on 2 May 1943.

About 150 Jews from Łuków survived the war; most of them left for the USSR. After the war, many of them moved to Silesia and then migrated to Israel, Western Europe and the USA. In 1950, six Jews still lived in Łuków.

Footnotes

• K. Czubaszek, Historia, Żydzi Łukowa i okolic [online] https://sites.google.com/site/jewishlukow/ [Accessed: 02.02.2021].

• A. Grabski, Łuków, [in] Żydzi w Polsce. Dzieje i kultura. Leksykon, ed. J. Tomaszewski, A. Żbikowski, Warsaw 2001, p. 300.

• Lukow, [in] The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, vol. 2, ed. S. Spector, G. Wigoder, New York 2001, p. 766.

• J. Muszyńska, Żydzi w miastach województwa sandomierskiego i lubelskiego w XVIII wieku. Studium osadnicze, Kielce 1998.

• Sefer Lukow. Gehelikt der chorew geworener kehile, ed. B. Heller, Tel Aviv 1968.