The history of the Jewish community in Łuków

Jewish settlement in Łuków dates back to the Middle Ages. According to a local historian Jan Stanisław Majewski, Israelits were brought to the town on the Krzna River in the 13th century by the duke Bolesław Wstydliwy. However, this information has never been confirmed in any document. It is more likely that the Jews settled in Łuków not before the second half of the 14th century. The first, indirect evidence of their presence can be the act of location of the town of 23rd June 1403 based on Magdeburg Law. The said act mentions „the townspeople and all the inhabitants of Łuków”. Such a distinction might suggest the presence of representatives of the Jewish diaspora in the town.

At the beginning of the 17th century the Jewish community in Łuków numbered more than a thousand people. It can be concluded on the basis of the memories from the times of the Swedish Deluge, when the first severe tragedy of this nation took place on Polish soil. About one thousand Jews were murdered by the Swedish and Transylvanian troops during the invasion on Łuków in 1657.

From the second half of the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century the Jewish diaspora in Łuków was flourishing. In 1676, 304 people, 74 Jews among them, lived in Łuków. In 1748 the Jewish community amounted to 484 persons in Łuków and 211 in the neighbouring villages; in 1765 – 543 in the town and 1020 in the whole kahal. According to the census of 1787 - 871 Catholics and 772 Jews lived in Łuków. The proportions were totally different within the whole territory of the parish of Łuków (7332 of Catholics and 1256 of the Jewish faith), which reflects territorial distribution of the Jewish settlement. In 1827, 2023 out of 3206 inhabitants of Łuków professed the Judaism. The number of Jews reached 4799 in 1897 with the general population of 8781 people. In 1911 it was 8058 and 12583 respectively. It can be noticed that the Jews accounted for 2/3 (sometimes even more) of all the residents of Łuków (in 1913 – 71,4%). The situation changed when Poland regained its independence – in 1920 ethnic Poles slightly outnumbered the Jews (8323 to 7418). Before the outbreak of WW2 the Jewish community of Łuków numbered about 6000 people, which accounts for, more or less, half of its population.

Until the second half of the 18th century the Jews of Łuków owned a wooden synagogue, which was frequently set on fire. The first brick, storey beit midrash (house of prayer; preserved until now) was erected at 15 Bóżniczna Street (now Zdanowskiego Street). Soon afterwards the second synagogue was built at 17 Bóżniczna Street, near Staropijarska Street, bombed in 1944 and never rebuilt. The second beit midrash was erected nearby (also destroyed during WW2). A document of 1792 confirms the existence of those three buildings. A brick mikveh (ritual bath), which exists until the present day, although thoroughly reconstructed, was built in the second half of the 19th century in Staropijarska Street. Another house of prayer was erected in Browarna Street (demolished in 2016). Apart from the mentioned public buildings, the Jews owned a number of private buildings and houses of prayer in Łuków. Their buildings were clustered around the Market Square (the present Freedom and Solidarity Square), Międzyrzecka, Kanałowa and Browarna streets.

The Jewish community could not function without its own cemetery. The first Jewish cemetery in Łuków, the location of which is known, was established in the second part of the 18th century on the Krzna River (after WW2 the hospital and a part of the park were situated in this area). A new cemetery was opened in 1864 at the former road leading to the town of Żelechów (now Warszawska Street). It was used until WW2. After the war the exhumed remains of the Jews murdered in Łuków and the neighbouring areas were buried there and the monument was made out of the saved matzevas. It was unveiled in 1950. During the occupation period Jews were buried individually and in mass graves in the fields near the Malcanów village. The executions were held in that area by the Germans. The monument commemorating the martyrdom of the Jews of Łuków was erected in 1989 at this cemetery, today covered by the forest.

The Jewish community of Łuków and its various fractions were led by numerous prominent rabbis. In the second part of the 16th century its leader was Joel Sirkes (1561-1640), one of the most famous Talmudic scholars, known as BaCh (from the initials of his most important work entitled „Beit Chadash” – The New Home). He died and was buried in Cracow in the Remu cemetery and his tombstone has been preserved till this day. Shlomo Zalman (died in 1660), another noteworthy scholar of the Torah, also served in Łuków. He was a grandson of a famous Saul Wahl (1541-1617), who was a rabbi, Talmudic scholar, great entrepreneur, royal banker, philanthropist and synagogue founder, legendary one-day king of Poland (elected after the Stephen Bathory’s death). In 1906 tzadik Hershele Morgenstern was appointed as a head of the Chassidic Jews of Łuków. He was a great-grandson of a recognized Menachem Mendel Morgenstern (1787-1859), the founder of the community in the town of Kock. Another group of the Chassidic Jews in Łuków was centred around tzadik Akiva Meir Torenheim (1842-1918), a son of a famous rabbi Issachar Berish ha-Kohen, from the town of Wolbórz near Piotrków Trybunalski. His tradition has been continued until now by the synagogue „Wolbórz-Łuków” in an Israeli town Bnei Brak.

In the interwar period the Jewish community in Łuków was really flourishing. Ten of its representatives were members of the 24-person town council, representing a number of parties and social organizations. It had its own kindergartens, schools, assistance and loan facility, sports club „Hapoel”, library, literary group and theatre. Two magazines „Dos Łukower Wort” (the Word of Łuków) and „Łukower Najes” (Łuków News) were published. The economic life was very prosperous. 385 out of 558 local craftsmen were of the Jewish origin, only 15% of the industrial and commercial companies were run by ethnic Poles. The most recognized entrepreneurs were, among many others, the families Gastman (footwear), Borenstein and Kesselbrenner (mills), Chajt and Weisbaum (bakery), Nay (brewery), Cukierman (construction staff), Springer (furniture), Yungstein (farm tools and equipment).

WW2 brought an end to the Jewish life in Łuków. German repressions started in 1939, when  2500 Jews were resettled to Łuków from Nasielsk, Serock and Suwałki. One year later 1000 Jews were brought from Mława, in May 1942 more than 2000 Jews from Slovakia. They were to be fed and accommodated. The town became overcrowded, hunger and diseases being its everyday reality. The Jews were used for free and exhausting work by the occupants, they were frequently robbed and shot on the slightest excuse. In May 1941 a Jewish district was created, initially open, then fenced with barbed wire.

The liquidation of the ghetto in Łuków started on 5th October 1942 and continued until the second half of November. At that time around 10000 people were transported to the death camp in Treblinka, at least 1500 were executed in Łuków – in the town hall’s courtyard and in Malcanów fields. About 4500 Jews from the neighbouring areas ¬– Adamów, Wojcieszków, Kock, Tuchowicz, Trzebieszów or Stanin and Ulan communities – were brought to Łuków. In December more than 500 people were killed in the ghetto. The Jewish district finally disappeared on 2nd May 1943, when 4000 people were deported to Treblinka by SS troops from Lublin, assisted by the Ukrainians. A total of more than 2000 Jews were killed in Łuków, while around 14000 were transported to gas chambers.

Only about 250 people out of the Łuków Jewish community of 6000 survived the Holocaust. Almost all of them emigrated – mostly to Israel and the United States of America.

For a few decades the memory of the Jews of Łuków was not cultivated. The situation changed when an exhibition dedicated to them was organized by the Regional Museum in Łuków. One year later a book by Krzysztof Czubaszek „The Jews of Łuków and Its Vicinity” was published. In 2012 a plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Jewish community was unveiled in the place of mass executions in the previous town hall yard. In 2015 a monument was erected in the area of a former synagogue. The year 2017 brought an opening of a permanent memory chamber in the Regional Museum in Łuków, dedicated to the history of the local Jewish diaspora.

This website is based on the book Żydzi Łukowa i okolic (The Jews of Łuków and Its Vicinity) by Krzysztof Czubaszek (Warsaw 2008).