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Translation of “Brzesc Kujawski” chapter from
Pinkas Hakehillot Polin
Published by Yad Vashem
Published in Jerusalem, 1989
Project Coordinator
Our sincere appreciation to Yad Vashem for permission
This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Polin:
Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Poland, Volume IV, pages 145-146,
published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1989
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
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[Pages 145-146]
Wloclawek District, Warsaw Province, Poland
Translated by Leon Zamosc
| Year | Population | Jews |
| 1765 | (?) | 175 |
| 1797 | 782 | 161 |
| 1860 | 1,815 | 629 |
| 1897 | 2,744 | 648 |
| 1921 | 3,818 | 794 |
| 1939* | 6,774 | 630 |
* Source: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
The settlement Brzesc Kujawski is first mentioned in documents from the beginning of the 13th century. It was a castle owned by the Dukes of Mazovia and Kujavia. Over time, Brzesc Kujawski became a trade and crafts center for the agricultural surroundings and was granted the status of a city that could hold weekly market days and annual fairs. Grain warehouses were erected on the site and the city was fortified. In 1596, King Sigmund III of Poland approved the municipal rights of the inhabitants of Brzesc Kujawski. The Swedish wars in the middle of the 17th century brought destruction to Brzesc Kujawski. The Swedes destroyed the fort and set many houses on fire. Most of the inhabitants of Brzesc Kujawski left the city and moved to other places. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that Brzesc Kujawski began to develop again. In 1795 Brzesc Kujawski was included in the area annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1807 it was included in the Duchy of Warsaw and from 1815 until the First World War was in the territory of the Congress Kingdom of Poland. In 1860 there were 116 houses on the site - 47 of them stone houses. In 1915, during the First World War, the Germans occupied the city until their withdrawal in 1918.
We do not have exact information about the beginnings of the Jewish settlement in Brzesc Kujawski. Jews probably began to settle there in the early 15th century. At the beginning of the 16th century, when Sigmund I the Old was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the Brzesc Kujawski community was included in the Jewish Council of the Four Lands. In 1519, a delegate of the Jews of Brzesc Kujawski attended a gathering of representatives of the 11 communities of the Council of the Four Lands, which discussed matters related to the tax collection imposed on the communities. A certificate from 1538, signed by King Sigmund I, authorized a regional meeting of the Council in Brzesc Kujawski and described the steps taken by the king against locals who had rioted to prevent the Jews from settling in the town. The townspeople had tried to expel the Jews from Brzesc Kujawski, demanding that they be banned from purchasing real estate. The Jews then owned 15 houses. The king came to the defense of the Jews and imposed on the municipality a penalty of 4,000 gold coins to be paid to the king's treasury if the acts of violence and murder against Jews were repeated. The king also threatened to prosecute the offenders.
In 1656, on the seventh day of Passover 5416, the Jewish community of Brzesc Kujawski was devastated by the brutal riots unleashed by the Polish military commander Stefan Czarniecki, who accused the Jews of taking the side of the Swedish invaders. On that day, more than 100 Jews were murdered and the rioters set their houses on fire. Partial data from 1664 show that the remaining Jews abandoned their homes and only four plots of land remained as Jewish property. In the years that followed, the Christian residents of Brzesc Kujawski opposed the restoration of the community.
In the years 1772-1768, the “Bar Confederation” (an association of Polish nobles who organized to fight against the Russian invaders) accused the Jews of assisting the Russians and four Jews of Brzesc Kujawski were executed by hanging on false charges. In 1775, King Stanislaw August Poniatowski issued an order protecting the Jews of Brzesc Kujawski and their property. In the years 1822-1862, the residence of Jews was limited to a special district of Brzesc Kujawski. This restriction was abolished in 1862, when Tsar Alexander II nullified the confinement of Jews to special quarters in the cities and towns of the kingdom of Poland.
As mentioned, the existence of an organized Jewish community in Brzesc Kujawski goes back to the beginning of the 16th century. We do not have details on the rabbis of Brzesc Kujawski until the second half of the 19th century, when Rabbi Yehoshua Falk Auerbach served in the town before moving to Plock in 1880. In the period between the two world wars, the rabbi of Brzesc Kujawski was Yekutiel Natan Rabinovich, who perished during the Shoah.
Between the two world wars, most of the Jews of Brzesc Kujawski made a living from petty trade and handicrafts. Some Jews were engaged in the grain trade. In 1928, a “Gemilat Hesed” fund was established to provide small interest-free loans to Jewish small merchants and poor artisans. In 1931, the fund's capital was over 3,000 zlotys. In 1933, the municipality donated 400 zlotys to the “Gemilat Hesed” fund. In 1930, the American Joint Distribution Committee helped establish a “Cooperative Bank of Small Merchants and Craftsmen” that offered low-interest loans to the needy. In the period between the two world wars, there were branches of Zionist organizations in Brzesc Kujawski, including the “General Zionists” (founded in 1930), the “Zionist Youth” (established in 1935), and the youth movement “Gordonia”. Some artisans were members of the local branch of the “Bund” Jewish party. The Jewish children studied in the traditional “heders”, but most of them also attended the municipal elementary school. At that time, the Zionists and the “Bund” ran their own Jewish libraries in Brzesc Kujawski. Dozens of Jews volunteered to serve in the town's Fire Brigade Association.
The Germans occupied Brzesc Kujawski in early September 1939. As they did everywhere, they plundered Jewish property and press-ganged Jews for forced labor. At the end of 1939, dozens of Jewish men were deported to the Wittenberg forced labor camp in the Lubbenau district. On September 28, 1941, 399 of the town's Jews (109 men and 290 women) were deported to Lodz. Most of them died there in the ghetto from disease and starvation. At the beginning of May 1942, the Germans deported the rest of the Jews of Brzesc Kujawski to the extermination camp in Chelmno.
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