The first Jews appeared in the Węgorzewo area at the end of the 18th century. Most often these were Polish merchants with occupations in river logging and fish sales. In 1799 a Jewish trader pushed 43 logs down the Węgorapa and Pregoła Rivers. Traces of the Jewish presence in this area, for example on Mamry Lake where they often came to purchase fish, are reflected in the names of local spots, such as Judenberg, Koszelne (corrected: Koszerne)[1.1].

The first orthodox Jew to permanently settle in Węgorzewo was the merchant Mojżesz Suessel (Moses Süßel) Aronhold (Arnhold, Arnohold) (1783–1853) of Człopa. This happened in 1813 when new laws allowing for the emancipation of and equal rights for Jews were put in place in Prussia. Five years later his brother, Jakub (Jakob Süßel) Aronhold also settled in the city. He too was a merchant. The local Diaspora must have expanded quickly, because by 1819 a mohel from Jastrowia moved here, Mojżesz Szymon Kohn (Moses Simon Kohn/Chon) (?–1845). Most of the Jews who settled in Węgorzewo came from the area between Wielkopolska and Western Pomorze and worked as traders of canvas, textiles, shoes, clothing, horses, while some worked as distillers and dentists. At the end of the 19th century a brigade of Jewish construction workers built a house by the former Cloister Square, which from then on was referred to as “the Jewish house.

The Jewish community in Węgorzewo experienced a rapid process of cultural integration. The wife of the merchant Georg Cohn sang in the local choir, which was famous for its performances in the evangelical church. Their lifestyle and daily life, outside the area of religion, did not differ much from that of their German neighbors and by the 20th century even old Biblical names became a rarity. The Jewish orthodox community experienced its most fruitful period at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s. A building belonging to Jaruslawsky that housed a textile shop, on the corner of the Old Market and Królewiecka Street, became one of the representative buildings of the city, and was prominently featured on postcards. After the death of Eduard Jaruslawsky, the person who inherited the building continued to use the name of the former owner to promote the shop; after all it guaranteed the high quality of the textiles.

The distinguished mathematician and physicist Zygfryd Henryk (Siegfried Heinrich) Aronhold (Aaronhold) (1819–1884) was born in Węgorzewo, and worked in Królewiec and Berlin. Aronhold’s constant and his differential equation are used to this day.

The Jews of Wegorzewo also lost their lives in the trenches of the First World War serving in the German army. Felix Cohn (1888–1914) and Eduard Lehmann (1896–1916) both died heroically. But the residents of Węgorzewo were also appalled by the behavior of the tsarist soldiers during the occupation of the city in 1914 and 1915, when objects stolen from civilians were collected in one of the city’s shops, and later taken across Prussia’s southern border by a Polish Jew.

Signs of intolerance and persecution intensified with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. One of the acts of anti-Semitism, beginning in 1938, was the “addition” of a second name for Jewish citizens in their identity papers and public registers – Israel for men, Sara for women. Many Jewish residents decided to emigrate outside the borders of Germany, as well as to larger German cities. Nonetheless, until the end of the 1930s there were still approximately 40 people of Jewish descent living in Węgorzewo. As late as 1939 sixteen Jews were noted as still living in the city. Their fate, just as the fates of all other Jewish citizens of Germany, was a cruel one. Some were able to safely make it across the border (to England, USA, Brazil, New Zealand, and later to Israel, while others sought safety in Berlin, from which they were deported and later killed in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Kulmhof (Chełmno) and Majdanek, and in the ghettos of Theresienstadt, Łodz, Rydza, Mińsk, Bełżyce and Raasik (Reval). Reinhard Blumenthal, born in Węgorzewo, was deported from Westerbork. Before being killed in Auschwitz in 1944, he went through the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen and the ghetto in Theresienstadt. Sella Epstein was deported to the ghetto in Kowno, and was murdered in the camp of Stutthof in 1944.

Residents of Węgorzewo who emigrated before the war and found shelter in seemingly safe countries such as Holland (Richard Gerelli, deported from Hilversum, Reinhard Blumenthal) and France (Emile Zlocisty, deported from Dranca, Richard Cohn killed in 1942 in the camp in Recebedou also lost their lives in Auschwitz. Approximately 30 people who had either been born in Wegorzewo or had lived there lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Members of the Arschinowitz, Friedmann, Kari, Katzky, Lehmann, Levy, Radinowski families, scattered all around the world, survived the Holocaust. No one returned to Węgorzewo.

Bibliography:

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• Führer durch die jüdische Gemeindeverwaltung und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland: 1932–1933, Berlin 1933, s. 22.
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