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Warsaw
Jewish Life in Tykocin Before the Holocaust
 Jewish Life in Tykocin
During the Holocaust
Pages of Testimony
Jewish Life in Tykocin Before the Holocaust
Historical Background
The town of Tykocin, in the Bialystok region of Poland, was established in the 15th century and the first Jews arrived in 1522.
They established a beautiful synagogue in 1642, possibly the oldest stone building in the town.
The town of Tykocin was a classic example of a shtetl. The word shtetl is the Yiddish diminutive for shtat
—meaning town, or city — and implies a relatively small community. A shtetl was a small town in Eastern Europe, encompassing
many features of a community: streets, houses, public buildings, schools and places of worship. Each shtetl was its own little town,
providing a warm and intimate lifestyle based on traditional ideals of piety, learning, communal justice, and charity.
The life of the shtetl was based around the synagogue, the marketplace, and the home. In the synagogue, for religious
worship; Jews served God. The marketplace was the source of most of the residents’ livelihood as well as a place to come in contact
with non-Jewish neighbors; and the home, the basic cultural unit of the shtetl, was structured on closely knit, traditional lines
connected to Yiddishkeit (Judaism). Births and deaths, bar mitzvahs and weddings, illnesses and recoveries, were family events
which tied the home to the synagogue, and by extension, to the community.
The town of Tykocin contained all the elements of shtetl life: warmth, community, synagogue, marketplace.
Towards the end of the 19th century, 73% of the population of Tykocin was Jewish. Until the beginning of the
20th century, the people of Tykocin lived a traditional lifestyle. Many well-known rabbis and scholars, famous throughout
Poland, lived in Tykocin, including Rabbi Shalom Rokeach (Maaseh Rokeach), Rabbi Eliyahu Shapira (Eliyahu Rabbah),
and Rabbi Yehoshua Bar Yosef (Pnei Yehoshua). The Beit Midrash (religious study hall) served as the Jews’ social and
cultural center. In 1904 the first Zionist organization was opened, and a few years later the first modern Jewish public library opened its
doors. In 1924, Beit Yaakov, a school for girls, was established as part of a revolutionary network of new schools for young
women throughout Poland.
There were many mutual aid organizations in Tykocin, including a free loan establishment, and a charity that helped fund weddings
for poor families. On Fridays, children would go door-to-door collecting money for charitable causes. Yisrael Meir Cohen, who grew up in
Tykocin, remembers:
“I was eight years old, the oldest of four children, when my father passed away in 1917. The heavy burden of supporting the family
and raising the children fell upon my mother. It would have been tough for a woman to do this alone, if not for the help of our friends
and neighbors, actually, all of the Jews of Tykocin…I especially remember the first Passover after my father died… My mother did not want
to be a burden upon our neighbors and therefore declined the many invitations we had for the traditional seder evening….That night,
the job of running the seder fell upon me, as the oldest…it was quiet in the house…I lifted up the glass of wine in my hand and looked
at my mother. When our eyes met, I couldn’t control myself and burst into tears, followed by the entire family. Immediately, our neighbors came
running into our house…they had been waiting outside because they anticipated that this is what would happen at our seder, and they
then stayed with us throughout the night…"
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) pp. 255-256. [Hebrew]
All efforts to maintain copyrights of this book were unsuccessful. |
Miriam Appelboim Zeitz recalls:
“The people of Tykocin were very proud of their Tykocinian heritage. When a Tykocinian would want to show off to someone from
another town, he….would say, first and foremost…I am from Tykocin. And second of all I am…”
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) pp. 259. [Hebrew] |
The residents of Tykocin were very supportive of those who chose to emigrate to Palestine. The day of an
emigrant’s departure was considered a holiday, with many of the Jews accompanying him/her out of the city and wishing him/her well.
Miriam Appelboim Zeitz remembers:
“Until this very day I remember when we said goodbye to him … all of the town accompanied him to the border, to bless him and
wish him luck…. after a while a letter arrived —that was read in the synagogue in front of all of the worshippers—where Chatzkel
described the Holy Land and his job as a shepherd in the Galilee.”
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) p. 264. [Hebrew]
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Prewar Photographs
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A view of Tykocin, Poland
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The holy ark in a synagogue, Tykocin, Poland
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Hanukka candelabrum, Tykocin, Poland, 1928
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The exterior of a synagogue, Tykocin, Poland
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A synagogue pulpit, Tykocin, Poland
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A room in a synagogue used for religious study, Tykocin, Poland
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A field where the Jewish cemetery once stood, Tykocin, Poland
Jewish Life in Tykocin During the Holocaust
The German army entered Tykocin on September 2, 1939, the day after they invaded Poland. Immediately, they rounded up all the men
of the community— Polish and Jewish—and locked them in the local church for three days without food. During that time the Germans
looted Jewish property. As a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and Russia, the Germans left the city on September 24,
1939, and Tykocin fell under Soviet rule. However, when Germany invaded Russia in Summer 1941, Tykocin once again came under Nazi rule.
Almost immediately the Jews of Tykocin were forced to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David in the center, and many of the men were
taken away to perform forced labor. Although there was no ghetto in Tykocin, the Jews suffered from starvation as the Polish Police forbade any
contact between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations, including the selling of food.
In August 1941, German soldiers forced a few of the Polish residents to dig three pits in the nearby Lupochawa forest. On August 25, 1941
the 1,400 Jews of Tykocin were ordered to report to the marketplace. In the words of survivor Yitzchak Peler:
“That fateful order was like thunder on a clear day for all of Tykocin’s Jews. We didn’t understand this strange decree. The leaders of the
community were in shock and helpless…”
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) p. 481. [Hebrew] |
The city was surrounded by German and Polish police; very few escaped. The Jews were told they were being ‘moved’ to the Bialystok Ghetto,
and they could bring 25 kg of property. The Germans then ordered the women and children into trucks, which were driven to the nearby Lupochawa
forest. The men were told to line up in order of height. As they were marched to the forest, they were forced to sing Hatikvah, the Zionist anthem.
That day, the Nazis murdered the Jews of Tykocin in the Lupachowa forest, and left their bodies in the three pits that were dug a
few days earlier. The following day, the Germans went from house to house, rounded up the 700 Jews who had not reported the day before,
and murdered them in Lupochawa.
Koppel Feikovicz, a Holocaust survivor from Tykocin, recalls:
“One day, I heard… that pits had been dug in the Lupochawa forest… I wanted to see it for myself… I went to the forest, and saw that
two huge pits had been dug. I had a bad feeling. I went home and I told my family what I had seen, my fears… my mother did not want to listen
and claimed that we had to stay with the community. My entire family agreed with my mother… On that fateful morning, all the people of Tykocin
were ordered to gather in the center of the city… everybody was guessing what was going to be; nobody wanted to assume the worst. Suddenly
we heard the sounds of trucks pulling up… instinctively I ran away from where I was standing… to a nearby village. I was hidden by a peasant woman.
She tried to help me find out what had happened to my family, but the Germans would not allow anyone in or out of the city. The next day, I snuck
out at midnight… and arrived at my house in Tykocin. I quietly passed through all the rooms. I searched every corner in the house and called out the
names of my loved ones—maybe someone was still there? But nobody answered…”
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) pp. 474-475. [Hebrew] |
August 26, 1941, marked the end of 400 years of Jewish life in Tykocin. Tykocin was the first Jewish community
to be completely destroyed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
After more than 1400 Jews were murdered at Lupochawa, Poles were ordered to cover the open pits with dirt, so as to conceal the
murder. It has been said that Poles later related that tremors shook the ground in Lupochawa, where the Jews had been massacred, for
several days. In addition, the Nazis looted the houses that had belonged to the Jews, and destroyed the Jewish cemetery.
Eliezer Horosoha, who grew up in Tykocin and escaped before the massacre at Lupochawa, remembers:
“In the beginning of August 1944, when I was liberated… my first destination was Tykocin. The city was still standing; it had not been
destroyed by the war. But the Jewish quarter was destroyed completely. The Beit Midrash (religious study hall) was no longer there.
The only remnant [of religious life] was the synagogue, which served [during the war] as a horse stable… I wandered around Tykocin for a
week without meeting one single Jew….”
Source: Sefer Tiktin, M. Bar Yuda and Z. Ben Nachum (eds.). (Tel-Aviv, 1959) p. 505. [Hebrew] |
Pages of Testimony
Pages of Testimony serve as symbolic gravestones, providing a unique memorial for victims of the Holocaust.
The following are five Pages of Testimony that were submitted to Yad Vashem, in memory of individuals from Tykocin who were murdered during the Holocaust:
Page of Testimony for Reizel Peler
Page of Testimony for Ada Turek
Page of Testimony for Shmuel Sokolovitz
Page of Testimony for Moshe Sokolovitz
Page of Testimony for Dvora Sokolowitch
You might want to print these Pages and take them with you on your journey to Poland. When you visit Tykocin,
you can read the names and stories that are recorded on these Pages of Testimony.
For more Pages of Testimony, search the Central Database
of Shoah Victims' Names.
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