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Jodłowa, Poland

(District of Jasło, Region of Krakow)

Translated by Jerrold Landau

At first, Jodłowa was a village that was set up by the Magdeburg charter in 1353 or 1359 with the authorization of King Kazimierz the Great. By the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Jodłowa was an urban settlement. Some of the residents were occupied in commerce and trades. Market and fair days would take place there. Most of the residents, however, continued to support themselves through agriculture. The railway line skipped over Jodłowa, and the nearest train station was a 26 kilometers away.

Apparently, the first Jews settled in Jodłowa at the end of the 18^th century. There was an organized Jewish community there in the middle of the 19^th century. During that period, the rabbi of Jodłowa was Rabbi Ozer the son of Rabbi Tzvi Eisenberg, who died in 1870. In 1897, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman the son of Rabi Avraham Frankel, formerly the rabbi and Admor of Wielopole, served in the sacred position. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman also led the court of the Admor. Around 1924, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman moved to Dębica, where he died in 1937. Rabbi Avraham Frankel (perhaps the son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman) took his place. Apparently, he also left Jodłowa, for in 1936 or 1937 the position was given over to Avraham Abba (Abosh) the son of Rabbi Elazar Horowitz. Rabbi Avraham Abba as well as his predecessor Rabbi Avraham Frankel perished during the Holocaust.

The Jews of Jodłowa earned their livelihood primarily from small-scale commerce and pedding in the villages. The Polish cooperatives, which were set up even before the First World War, impinged on the livelihood of many local Jews between the two world wars. The situation of the Jews of Jodłowa was shaky from a security perspective as well. The pogroms perpetrated by the local and village riffraff upon the local Jews in 1919 testify to this. The stores and homes of Jewish families were pillaged, and the inciters of the pogroms called upon the farmers to stop selling food products to the Jews. The Jews were in distress, and some families even came to the point of literal hunger. The food shipments (primarily oils) from the JOINT and from the assistance committee of Tarnów were insufficient to improve their lot.

The inimical relations of the gentile population toward the Jews of Jodłowa continued to leave their mark even during subsequent years. The Jewish peddlers who made the rounds to the villages with their wares witnessed the meaning of this relationship with their own flesh. Many of them were pushed out of their businesses during the 1930s. In 1928, the teachers of the local public school demanded that the Jewish students cut off their peyos. In 1937, all of the Jewish butchers lost their source of livelihood, due to the fact that the Jews of Jodłowa were not permitted to maintain even one butcher shop in accordance with the ban against ritual slaughter.

Apparently, no Zionist organization existed in Jodłowa. At the time of the Zionist Congress of 1935, only 10 shekels (tokens of membership in the Zionist organization) were sold. All of their votes went to the General Zionist list.

During the Second World War

A group of refugees from Lodz arrived in 1940. In 1941, they

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received a certain amount of assistance from the J.S.S. in Krakow. In February, 1942, 110 Jews of Jodłowa were under the care of the J.S.S. During that period, men and were snatched for forced labor, and many were sent to work camps. There were several Jews from Jodłowa in the Mielec Camp in March 1942, and apparently some Jews of Jodłowa were also imprisoned in Pustkow. The Jews of Jodłowa continued to live in their homes and occupy themselves with agriculture until July 1942.

The first incident of mass murder in Jodłowa took place on July 10, 1942. That day, the German gendarmes from Jasło murdered 25 Jews of Jodłowa. The Jewish settlement of Jodłowa was liquidated on August 12, 1942. That morning, all of the Jews were ordered to present themselves in the market square. The Jews were told that they were going to be transferred to a larger ghetto, and they were permitted to take a personal suitcase with them. All valuables were stolen from the Jews in the square. From there, all of them, 160 people, were taken by groups to the forest of Przeczyca. There, after being forced to remove all their clothes, they were murdered by being shot into an open pit. One Jew, Hersh Geller, escaped from the pit. Several Jews of Jodłowa who succeeded in escaping and not being present in the square were saved in hiding places on the Aryan side. Seventeen Jews returned to Jodłowa after the liberation. They set up a monument at the site of the mass murder.

All of the Jews of Jodłowa set out for the lands of the west during the first waves of Jewish emigration from Poland.

Bibliography:

Yad Vashem Archives: M-1/E 1256/1227, M-1/E 2357/2399, M-1/Q 2090/485; 0116/1778; 016/4690; 033/453.
AMT'Y: HM/7921.
Atz'M: Z-4/235-14.
Jasłow oskarża, Warszawa 1973, pp. 190-192, 286.
“Chwila Wieczorna” December 2, 1936; “Nowy Dziennik” June 2, 1919, October 14, 1928, January 8, 1937.

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