Even though Jews started to settle in Mazovia in the early 14^th century, they arrived to Zambrów itself much later, probably in the 17^th century and certainly no later than the beginning of the 18^th century. According to the Zambrow Memorial Book (Sefer Zambrow), first Jews may have settled in Zambrów in the 16^th century, but similarly to the Jews of Łomża, they were removed from the town on the request of the Christian population, which dreaded their competition in trade and crafts[1.1]. However, no documents have been preserved which could confirm this hypothesis. The earliest mention of the Jewish presence in Zambrów, as stated in the Memorial Book, was a document drawn up by the burghers of Zambrów and addressed to King Sigismund the Old in which they asked the monarch to move the weekly market from Wednesday to Thursday, so that the local Jews would be able to buy groceries and other items necessary for Shabbat[1.1.1].

The preserved source materials allow us to conclude that until the end of the 18^th century, Jews constituted merely a small group of settlers who most likely arrived to the town from nearby Jabłonka. In the early period of their presence, they did not establish a separate community and belonged to the kehilla in Tykocin. The Pinkas of Tykocin includes mentions of Jews residing in Zambrów ca. 1716[1.1.1]. Even though the funeral society (Hevra Kadisha) was founded in the town in 1741 or – according to other sources – in December 1740, there was still no Jewish cemetery in Zambrów, and the deceased were buried in Jabłonka, located 9 km away[1.2]. The closest mikveh, synagogue, and cheders were situated in the localities of Śniadowo and Pruszki.

In 1765, only 12 Jews lived in Zambrów itself, with the number increasing to 32 towards the end of the century; they constituted 6% of the population. The years 1827–1858 marked a mass influx of Jewish people to Zambrów and in the 1860s, they already constituted over 65% of the town’s population[1.3].

An independent Jewish community was founded in Zambrów in 1829 or 1830, depending on the source. The local cemetery was opened no later than 1828; it was expanded in 1890[1.4]. At the time, most Jewish settlers lived in the vicinity of the Zambrów Market Square, with several dozen residential buildings and Jewish-owned stores located around it. In 1839, the town’s first beth midrash was established in a private apartment at the Market Square. The community had its own rabbi, a mikveh, various administrative bodies, including a rabbinical court, and a number of cheders. Funeral services were provided by the Hevra Kadisha society, while the needy received aid from several charitable associations, including Hachsanat Kala, which collected dowries for poor maidens, and Gemilut Chasidim, which gave loans to those in financial need[1.5]. Two new synagogues were erected in Zambrów in the early 1890s – one made of brick and one of wood. The wooden synagogue was soon lost to a fire and replaced with a new brick building. The town also boasted several Hasidic houses of prayer.

Initially, the Jews of Zambrów mostly made a living from trade in timber and grains, and some were leaseholders of the local inns and taverns. In the mid-19^th century, many Jewish people also took up horse breeding, pomiculture, crafts, and petty trade[1.6]. In the 1890s, the town boasted two Jewish-owned steam mills and one water mill, a windmill, a vinegar factory, a brickyard, a dye shop, and 60 shops and 26 inns. There were also numerous artisan workshops run by Jewish shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, and blacksmiths[1.7]. Some local Jews also dabbled in beer brewing, winemaking, and the production of carbonated water[1.8].

Towards the end of the 19^th century, the Jews of Zambrów provided building materials and worked at the construction of Russian military barracks. Later on, they also opened a kosher diner for several hundred Jewish soldiers serving in the Tsarist army. The economic rivalry between Jewish and Christian merchants and craftsmen soon started to breed major conflicts, which in the second half of the 19^th century culminated in an event often described as a pogrom. The Jews of Zambrów were falsely accused of vandalising the Catholic cemetery. Fearing a potential act of revenge, they sent out a delegation to the governor in Łomża, asking him for assistance. The authorities sent out a unit of Cossacks who dispersed the crowd and prevented any outbursts of violence[1.9].

The expansion of the garrison and the influx of Polish settlers into Zambrów resulted in gradual changes in the town’s ethnic composition, with Jews constituting ever a lesser percentage of the population. Additionally, the community itself was shrinking due to the wave of mass migration, especially to Palestine, which started in the early 20^th century due to the dire economic situation and the growth of anti-Semitic sentiments. A particular event which triggered the outflow of Jewish people from Zambrów was the fire of 1895, which consumed ca. 400 buildings, including the synagogue and a vast majority of Jewish shops and houses. Its aftermath was a serious economic crisis and the aforementioned wave of migration which further surged after the Russian Revolution of 1905 and another fire of the town in 1910[1.10]. In the 1920s and 1930s, a large group of local pioneers from the Hehalutz organization left Zambrów for Palestine. One of the most prominent migrants from the town was Shlomo Goren, who was the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel in the years 1973–1983.

In the interwar period, Zambrów boasted branches of almost all active Jewish political parties and organisations, including the Union of Zionist Youth (est. 1928), the “Betar” Youth Association, the League of Workers in Palestine, the Jewish Labour Bund, Hashomer Hatzair, and Brit Trumpeldor, as well as many social organisations. Zionist meetings were held each week in the “Moderne” cinema[1.11]. The town also had two competing sports clubs: Ha-Poel, operating under the auspices of Zionist organisations, and left-wing Der Shtern, later also known under its Polish name – Gwiazda[1.12]. The Jewish cultural life was thriving thanks to a library, extensive school network, a drama club, and a cinema run by the Tykociński family (closed down in 1929).

In the 1930s, due to the crisis and rivalry in the local economy, Zambrów saw growing tensions between the Jewish community and the Polish population of the town. The apex of the conflict came in the years 1936–1937, when Jews were targeted with an economic boycott and suffered from numerous anti-Semitic assaults, incited partially by the National Democratic movement, which was particularly strong in the area of Łomża[1.13]. In order to face the exacerbating social and economic difficulties, various charities and aid organisations were established in Zambrów, including Linas Hatsedek, Achavat Achim, the Women’s Association, the Craftsmen’s Association, and the “Centos” Society for the Care of Jewish Orphans. All of these received substantial financial support from Hilfskomitet – an aid organisation founded by émigrés from Zambrów living in Chicago[1.14].

On 1 September 1939, many Jews of Zambrów were killed in the German air raid of the town[1.15]. The Wehrmacht entered Zambrów in September 1939 and immediately started to carry out executions. Ca. 50 Jewish people were murdered before the town was handed over to the Soviets. The German army took back control of Zambrów on 22 June 1941 and started to confiscate Jewish property with the help of local collaborationists[1.1.15]. They also carried out a mass execution of ca. 90 Jews. On 20 July 1941, all Jewish people were ordered to wear a badge with the Star of David. They were forbidden to leave the town.

All adults were forced to work for the Germans. The Judenrat was founded with Gerszon Srebrowicz at its helm. Jews were ordered to pay contributions in cash and valuables; non-compliance would result in the murder of the Judenrat members[1.1.15]. In August 1941, the local Jewish population started to be governed by the civilian authorities, headed by Amtskomissar Rohr.

A series of executions was carried out in the summer of 1941 in the Czerwony Bór Forest (in the vicinity of the villages of Szumowo and Kołaki Kościelne). The victims were earlier told by Germans that they would be transported to labour sites. The largest execution was held on 1 August on the order of SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Hermann Schaper, with a total of 700 up to even 1,000 Jews killed on a single day. After protests from the Zambrów Judenrat, the Germans replaced the members of the Jewish “authorities” and formed a new 10-person council headed by Gliksman, a refugee from Łódź[1.1.15].

The ghetto in Zambrów was most likely established in August 1941 and encompassed an area bound by the following streets: Świętokrzyska, Krzywa, and Białostocka. At first, the district was not fenced. Officially, its population amounted to 2,000, but in reality it may have been even twice as large, as Zambrów was the destination of many refugees from nearby localities, including Prosienica[1.1.15]. After another execution, carried out in September 1941 and claiming the lives of 300 people, including the elderly and pregnant women, the area of the ghetto was fenced and the anti-Semitic violence temporarily subsided (as the Jewish community gave Germans a “bribe” of 100,000 marks and a kilogramme of gold)[1.1.15].

Many prisoners of the ghetto died due to poor sanitary conditions, hunger, and typhus epidemics. Those fit for work were organised into commandos and sent out to work outside the ghetto – mainly at the reconstruction of the barracks in Stalag XII E Zambrów, which was a German camp for Soviet POWs. Jews were also forced to clean the barracks and the apartments of the camp staff. Others worked at the construction of the road connecting Białystok with Ostrów Mazowiecka[1.1.15]. The working Jews were able to bring some food inside the ghetto, while others managed to obtain it by bartering with the local peasants[1.1.15].

In November 1942, a transit camp for Jews was established by the Germans in the Zambrów barracks. Its population amounted to ca. 14,000–17,000 Jews from the Łomża District, or according to other data – as many as 20,000[1.16].

In the late autumn and winter of 1942–1943, the ghetto and the transit camp were liquidated by the Germans. The prisoners were transported to Czyżew, where they were loaded on trains and sent to the nearby Nazi death camp in Treblinka[1.17]. In January 1943, the last surviving Jews from the Zambrów Ghetto (ca. 3,500 people) were deported to Auschwitz, where a group of several hundred was assigned to the concentration camp and the remaining people were murdered in gas chambers immediately upon arrival. Less than 10 people from this transport survived the Holocaust[1.18].

In the spring of 1944, a group of 12 Jews, probably escapees from the ghetto, was discovered in a dugout in the Pykle Forest and killed with grenades. The perpetrators were German military policemen from the Zambrów post[1.19].

Several Jews managed to survive in a bunker located on the property of Polish farmers from Milewo. Among them were the Stupnik brothers. Another survivor from the Zambrów Ghetto was Hersz Smolar, later the leader of the resistance movement in the Minsk Ghetto and commander of a communist partisan unit in Naboliki Forest[[refr:|Crago L., “Zambrów,” [in] Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1939–1945, vol. II, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, Part A, eds. P. Megargee, M. Dean, Bloomington 2012, p. 985.].

A large part of the material heritage of Zambrów Jews was destroyed in warfare, including most of the buildings in the Jewish district. After the war, many traditionally Jewish streets ceased to exist, for example Bożnicza (Synagogue) Street. Only around a dozen tenement houses from the Jewish district and the cemetery have been preserved. Most of the few Holocaust Survivors from Zambrów migrated to the USA, South America, Israel, and France.

Bibliography

• Crago L., “Zambrów,” [in] Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1939–1945, vol. II, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, Part A, eds. P. Megargee, M. Dean, Bloomington 2012, pp. 984–985.
• Cygielman A., “Zambrów,” [in] Encyclopaedia Judaica, eds. F. Skolnik, M. Berenbaum, vol. 16, Detroit – New York – San Francisco – New Haven – Waterville – London 2007, p. 449.
• Mroczek J.S., Zambrów. Zarys dziejów, Białystok 1982.
• “Zambrów,” [in] The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, eds. Sh. Spector, G. Wigoder, vol. III, New York 2001, p. 1487
• Sychowicz K., Zambrów na przestrzeni wieków, Zambrów 2006.
• The Zambrow Yizkor Book, ed. Y.-T. Lewinsky, Tel Aviv 1963 [online] https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/z/zyb-04.htm [Accessed: 27 Jan 2020].