Outline History of the Jews in Lublin

Z Strona o Żydach lubelskich

The First Republic

The first mentions concerning the presence of Jews in Lublin come from the time of the reign of King Casimir the Great. According to records from the 16th Century, although not finding confirmation in historic sources, this ruler gave the first privileges for the local Jewish community in 13361. However, one can guess, that a well organized Jewish community functioned in Lublin since the 1570s, when Rabbi Jakub from Trident arrived in the city, being suspected of participation in a blood libel in his native Germany. The choice of Lublin as a place of shelter provides evidence for the fact that the local community was already well known, not only in the country, but even beyond its borders. It is known, that the catholic clergy of Lublin protested against the presence of the German rabbi in the city. In the next century, the dynamic development of Jewish colonization in the city was a result of mainly economic factors. The favourable geographic placement of the city on the trade routes induced many Jewish traders to settle in Lublin and lead trade activity there. The increasing number of the Jewish inhabitants and their economic activity quickly led to conflict with the Christian burgesses, which resulted in the King’s recommendation from 1518, suggesting to the starost (prefect) of Lublin a limitation of the “very wide Jewish trade in the city”. In 1535 Lublin gained from the King the privilege De non tolerandis Judaeis, prohibiting Jews from settling within the city walls4. This limitation hit on one hand the economic roots of the Jewish community of Lublin and led to its separation from the “Christian city” (lasting until 1862), and on the other hand contributed to the sudden development of Podzamcze, the Jewish district stretching around the castle of Lublin. The priviledge granted in 1523 (by the Sigismund the Old) providing the community of Lublin with the rights equal to other communities in Poland, was a turning point in its history. This was done in accordance with a general prerogatives, providing for the Jews, by consecutive monarchs, starting from the so called Statute of Kalisz from 1264 (the care of the monarch, normalization of professional activity, and protection of places of worship). In 1556 the Jews of Lublin additionally received a special privilege, confirming their inner jurisdictional and administrative autonomy (independent choice of elders and community officials) and also their submission to the provincial governor’s authority as the appeal institution. Normalization of the legal situation favoured the comprehensive development of commune of Lublin. In the middle of the 16th Century, Podzamcze was inhabited by 840 Jews, who gained the privilege De non tolerandis Chrisianis, prohibiting the Christian population from settling and purchasing houses and grounds in the area of the Jewish city. Despite of the limitations and lively competition, Jewish trade and craft were flowering, which contributed to an increase of wealth and prestige of the commune, and to the development of cultural life. In 1530, the eminent scientist Shalom Shachna, was nominated the Rabbi of Lublin. He was the son of the royal agent Yosko Shakhnowitch, who began the creation of the famous centre of Talmudic studies in the city. The formal opening of the yeshiva of Lublin took place after the death of Shachna, through the royal privilege from 1567, and Salomon Luria, called Maharshal, became its first rector. The son of his successor Mordekhai Jaffe Kalonymos contributed to the creation of a significant centre of Jewish publishing in Lublin (the second most important after Krakow). In the publishing house, opened by him in 1578, hundreds of outstanding and high level works of Hebrew religious literature were published. At the same time, the structures of kahal of Lublin hardened and developed. The building of the first brick synagogue, called the Synagogue of Maharshal, was started in 1567, on the northern slope of the castle hill by Jateczna street. As time passed, in its direct neighborhood, the synagogue complex rose. It contained the office of the kahal, the yeshiva, the house of studies (bet hamidrasz), the mikvah, and kosher butcher’s shops. Probably, from the end of the 15th Century, on Grodzisko hill, a Jewish cemetery was functioning (according to the information from the 1890s the date 1489/90 could be seen, and the Jewish cemetery itself was first mentioned in a document from 1555). The establishment of the Council of the Four Lands (Va'ad Arba Aratzot), the central body of Jewish autonomy in the Polish Republic, created in 1580 by King Stefan Batory, was the confirmation of the economic, cultural and administrative significance of the city. A period of sudden development of the commune of Lublin (having in 1602 about 1,200 people) lasted until the middle of 17th Century. In 1655, Lublin was invaded by the Moscow-Cossack armies, which completely ravaged the Jewish city. The synagogue complex by Jateczna street, together with the synagogue of Maharshal, house of studies, mikvah and Talmudic school were destroyed. Most of the houses were destroyed, and the armies murdered over 2,000 Jews. The destruction was completed by the attack of the Swedish armies in the following year. War caused the fall of the economic and cultural life, and contributed to a significant decrease in the size of the Jewish community. The sessions of the Council of the Four Lands was stopped in the city, the large markets were moved from Lublin to Łęczna, and the few surviving inhabitants of Podzamcze were moved for some time to the Christian district. The period of triumphant and hostile counter-reformation and constant economic restrictions from the authorities did not support the reconstruction of the community. These restrictions arose from competition between the Jews and Christian burgesses. Efforts of the Christian burgesses, aiming mainly to remove the Jews from outside the city walls, resulted in 1761 in the expulsion of the Jewish population from the city, settling it for another time in the Podzamcze area. Four years later this community had almost 2,500 people, inhabiting apart from the traditional Jewish quarter, also the Kalinowszczyzna neighborhood, as well as the suburbs of Piaski and Wieniawa. In the second half of the 17th Century the first news about the Jewish mystic movement developed in Ukraine, Chassidism, came to Lublin. Its initiator in Lublin was the student of the famous Elimelekh from Leżajsk, Yaakov Yitzkhok Horowitz, called the Seer of Lublin, who settled during this time in Wieniawa, near Lublin, building there his manor house. A short while later zaddik moved to the centre of the Jewish district in Lublin, where the first Chassidic prayer house in Lublin was established in 1794, in the tenement at number 28, Szeroka street. Very quickly, a group of followers concentrated around the residence of the Seer of Lublin, and the fame of charismatic zaddik spread to the whole country. Among his students there were: founders of the new Chassidic dynasties in Góra Kalwaria (Alter), Bełz (Rokeach), Kazimierz Dolny (Taub), Izbica and Radzyń (Leiner) and the famous zaddik from Kock, Menachem Mendel Morgensztern. After the death of Horowitz in 1815, most of the Chassids from Lublin submitted to his students, as Widzący himself did not establish his own dynasty. Another famous zaddik appeared in Lublin in 1857. This was Jehuda Leib Eiger, who settled in the house at number 40, Szeroka street, building there his own manor house and initiating the Eiger dynasty of Lublin, leading the local Chassids until the outbreak of the Second World War.

19th Century and the interwar period

At the beginning of the 19th Century, Jews constituted almost a half of the Lublin population, and city itself remained, until the middle of the century, after Warsaw, the second largest centre of Jewish population in the Polish Kingdom. Between 1815 and 1864 their number rose from 4,771 to 12,922 people, and the percentage in relation to the whole population from 48.3% to 59.2%. In the year preceding the outbreak of First World War, Lublin was inhabited by over 38,000 Jews, constituting almost half of the city population. The rising population was deprived of most of civil rights until the 1860s. Apart from the limitation of the place of residence, (tsarist authorities sanctioned the old privilege De non tolerandis Judaeis, creating in the city a separate Jewish quarter), prohibition of purchasing grounds and working in particular professions, the Jews paid separate and higher taxes (e.g. kosher, recruit), they did not have an electoral law and could not perform any of public functions. The abolishment of these limitations in 1862 led to some Jews to leave the Jewish quarter, and begin settling in districts of the city which had been unavailable to them until this time (mainly the north-eastern part of the Old Town and Krakowskie Przedmieście – the main street of Lublin), a revival – although in limited nature – of Jewish-Christian relations, and a mobilization of economic life and industry development. It should be noted that these changes concerned, in fact, only the richest and the most strongly assimilated part of Jewish population, constituting only a small percentage of the whole. Most of the Jews of Lublin still lived separately – although not through compulsion, but voluntarily – in economic, moral, language and intellectual ghetto. In comparison to the other big cities of the Polish Kingdom it was in general a poor, traditionally religious, poorly educated and almost completely isolated community. Strong Chassidic influences in the city favoured its conservatism and backwardness. Some changes in this image started to occur only at the close of the century. In this period, re-definition of the current criteria of Jewish self-identification followed – abandoning the perception of their own status as a category of a religious group, and starting to be a national minority, aware of its own separation. It was then, when the new socio-political trends reached Lublin. These motivated Jewish public life at the scale unusual until that time. It was Zionism and the workers’ Bund (the first structure of that party was established in the city in 1903) that found its followers there at the beginning. There was also the creation of private schools for Jewish girls, modern benevolent institutions (among others the modern hospital at Lubartowska street and the orphanage at Grodzka street), and the religious community motivated itself, quickly becoming a place of debates between the orthodox majority and the still small number of followers of the new trends. The real revival of social life followed only after 1915, when Lublin found itself under Austro-Hungarian occupation. The liberal attitude of the new authorities deepened the activity of the Jews of Lublin in many fields. In 1916 within the city there were already 15 private Jewish schools operating (including 3 gymnasiums), the first newspaper was established (the monthly “Myśl Żydowska” (“The Jewish Thought”), published in Polish), the amateur theatr was led by Jakub Waksman and the first public library was operated by the religious community. Jews sat also in the city council. At the moment of Poland regaining its independence, the Jews of Lublin possessed well developed and strongly differentiated structures of socio-political life. In 1921 the city was inhabited by 37,337 Judaism followers, constituting almost 40% of the whole population. Ten years later their number increased to 38,93516. In the inter-war period, there functioned nine Jewish political parties in Lublin: Agudas Isroel, Folkspartay, Bund, General Zionists, Mizrachi, Zionistst-Revisionists, Poale Zion-Left , Poale Zion-Right and the Zionist Workers Party Hitachduth). Almost all of them possessed their own youth extensions and led their own lively organizational, social and cultural activities. In Lublin, there were also Jewish sport organizations, educational institutions (the leader of which, opened in 1930, thanks to the Rabbi Meir Shapiro, was the modern rabbinic high school Yeshivat Hakhmei Lublin) and trade unions. Cultural life was lively. In the building of the Panteon cinema, at Jezuicka street, a Jewish theatre performed. On its stage performed such celebrities as Ida Kamińska, Jonas Turkow or Dina Halperin. Since 1918 the newspaper „Lubliner Tugblat”, was published, in Yiddish, (it was published until the outbreak of the Second World War), and since 1926 the Bund’s weekly „Lubliner Shtime”17. In the second half of the 1930’s, as the first generation of Jews reaching adulthood in independent Poland, trends also leading to the secularization and modernization of public life began to occur with much larger intensity than before. Part of young population faced questions of attitudes relating to language and moral assimilation. The Jewish community’s knowledge of Polish language and culture (following it larger openness towards non-Jewish surroundings), the regression of the traditional religious life, which, ignoring the changes happening in the outer world was not able to provide the young generation with satisfactory answers for their problems, as well as the unusual popularity among the young people for Zionist and Socialistic ideas, and criticisms of the traditional way of life were all trends which developed during these times. On the other hand, the assimilative attitudes were curbed by the intensification, in this period, of anti-Semitic behaviour, within Polish society, as for example with the boycott of Jewish trade, initiated by the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe) in 1936.

The Extermination and postwar period

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Lublin was inhabited by about 42,000 Jews. As the Germans occupied the city, this number increased by several thousands of people – fugitives from the western parts of the country, or people displaced compulsorily by the occupation of the Reich itself, or from the grounds included into it. In November 1939 the Jews living in the city centre (including Krakowskie Przedmieście and its side streets) were moved by force to the traditional Jewish district at Podzamcze18. Shortly afterwards Jews were touched by another repressions. They were marked with bands with the Star of David. The duty of work was introduced, and the use of means of transport and public areas was prohibited. Bank accounts were blocked, religious practices were prohibited, access to educational institutions was closed, money and material contributions were introduced and finally Jewish enterprises and estates were taken over. At the beginning of 1940 the 24-people Judenrat was established in Lublin. It was led by engineer Henryk Bekker. The vice-chairman of the council was engineer Marek Alten and its office was placed in the so called orphanage at Grodzka street, number 1119. In March 1941, the governor of Lublin, Ernest Zörner, announced the order concerning the establishment of the “Jewish housing district” in the city. It included Podzamcze (limited by the line of Lubartowska street) and part of the Old Town. The establishment of the ghetto was preceded by the displacement of about 10,000 Jews from Lublin to small towns of the Lublin district20. Until the end of its existence, the Lublin ghetto was not fully closed, however the concentration of a community of almost 40,000 people on such small space (as stated in October 1941)21 contributed to unusually cramped living conditions, poor sanitary and hygienic conditions and in consequence, to outbreaks of epidemics of contagious diseases, which in connection with starvation and weakening work, decimated the inhabitants of the Jewish district of Lublin. The large deportationfrom the ghetto of Lublin began during the night of the 16th to the 17th of March 1942. Lublin became the first Jewish centre in the General-Government, in which the “AktionReinhardt” – the systematic and mass extermination of the Jewish population on this area – was realised. The people caught in the ghetto area were at first concentrated in the square in front of the Judenrat, where the preliminary selections were made. Persons that were recognized as not able to work were guided to the meeting point in the Maharshal Synagogue, and next to the rail ramp by the city slaughterhouse at Kalinowszczyzna. From there, transports to the extermination camp at Bełżec left almost everyday. During the ”Aktion”, which lasted one month (till the middle of April 1942), about 26,000 Jews were transported there from the ghetto of Lublin, and 1,500 were shot right away. Among the deported was the president of Judenrat, Henryk Bekker, and half of the remaining members of Jewish council22. The rest of the living Jews were moved to the newly created ghetto at Majdan Tatarski – in the suburbs of Lublin, and placed in the neighbourhood of the concentration camp at Majdanek. Altogether about 7,000 Jews settled there, including 4,250 that did it legally (the possessors of documents authorizing them to settle in the new ghetto – so called J-ausweises). As the Jewish quarter at Podzamcze was empty, Germans started to destroy it systematically. Among other things, the main street of the quarter – Szeroka and the synagogue complex at Jateczna street were destroyed. The fate of remaining ghetto at Majdan Tatarski was finalised on the 9th of November 1942. Most of its inhabitants were chased away on foot to the camp at Majdanek, where the newly arrived were selected straight away. All of the people that were unable to work, the elderly and children, were sent to the gas chambers, the rest was shot right away (including the last president of Judenrat, Marek Alten, and the chief of the Jewish Police Service, Henryk Goldfarb). After the definitive elimination of the ghetto at Majdan Tatarski, its buildings were burnt down23. It is very difficult to estimate, how many Jews of Lublin managed to survive the Holocaust period. At the beginning of August 1944, there were about 300 Jews inhabiting the city, including only 15 pre-war inhabitants of Lublin24. By the end of that year the number rose to over 3,000, and then – in the first months of 1945, after liberation of the pre-war centres of Jewish life: Warsaw, Łódź and Krakow – it fell to about 2,500 (number from the beginning of May 1945)25. The first post-war organization associating Jews staying in the city was established on 8th of August 1944. This was the Bureau for Matters Concerning Aid to the Jewish Population of Poland, led by Shlomo Hershenhorn. Two days later, The Committee for Helping the Jews was established, and was soon renamed The Jewish Committee in Lublin26. In November 1944 the Central Committee of Jews in Poland was established there, and Lublin became the unofficial capital of Polish Jewry. The Jewish political parties (Bund, Poale Zion-Left, The Jewish Fraction of PPR and Ichud, gathering old general Zionists) were reborn or established from the beginning – like the socio-cultural institutions (The Central Jewish Historical Commission – the beginning of the Jewish Historical Institute, Jewish Writers, Journalists and Artists Association, and Association of the Jews – Fighters against the Hitlerism). The first post-war newspapers started to be produced (“The Bulletin of the Jewish Press Agency” and „Dos Noje Lebn”) and religious life was reborn (Safrin Feldshuh was appointed as the as the general Rabbi of Poland)27. In the first half of 1945 most of these institutions moved their settlements to Warsaw and Łódź and Jewish environment of Lublin begun to shrink gradually. In the middle of 1946, the city was still inhabited by about 2,300 Jews. After the mass emigration from the country, caused by the Pogrom of Kielce, that number diminished to about one thousand people. During the 1950s there still lived few hundred Jews in Lublin. They mostly left Poland after the events in 1968. Currently, a branch of the Warsaw Jewish Religious Community and a branch of the Socio-Cultural Jews Association in Poland function in the city. The Jewish community of Lublin has today only several dozens of people.

Adam Kopciowski

Historian, member of the Center for Jewsih Studies of UMCS; studies the history of the Jewish population in Lublin region in the 20th Century; grant holder of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 2005; member of the Audit Committee of the Polish Association of Jewish Studies and Council of the State Museum in Majdanek; author of several dozens of articles for scientific circles and the general public dedicated to this subject and the work The Extermination of the Jews in Zamość (2005)