Sokołów Podlaski was a market town situated in eastern Poland, strategically located on the route between Warsaw and Białystok. Sokolow was little developed economically and Jewish commerce depended largely on the Polish peasants from the surrounding villages, who came into town on its Thursday market days to sell their countryside products and to buy everything that they needed.

By the mid-1800s, it had become a majority-Jewish town and remained so until its destruction in the Holocaust. The Jewish population numbered about 4,500 at the beginning of the 20^th century. Just before the German invasion in September 1939, the Jewish population reached its historical peak of about 5,200 to 5,500 people.

Chapters like “From the Shtetl” and “Sokolow Between the Two World Wars” are filled with vivid descriptions of life from the boisterous market days to a stroll through the town's streets and alleys capturing the character of each, and of the people, businesses and landmarks along the way.

In the summer of 1941, the Germans set up a ghetto, using Jews as forced labor to construct the guard towers. In September 1942, the majority of the community was transported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Three chapters in the book's section on the destruction of Sokolow painfully recount the memories of Jews who returned to the town soon after its liberation or in later years. But they find everything they remember to be gone. “There are no longer any Jews in Sokolow.”

The book has a memorial list of victims.

Sokołów Podlaski [Pol], Sokolov [Yid], Sokoluv [Rus], Sokołów

Miedzna 8 miles NW
Mokobody 10 miles SW
Węgrów 10 miles W
Liw 12 miles W
Sterdyń 13 miles N
Kosów Lacki 14 miles NNW
Siedlce 16 miles S
Drohiczyn 17 miles E
Mordy 17 miles SE
Stoczek 18 miles NW
Nur 19 miles N
Ciechanowiec 22 miles NNE
Prostyń 22 miles NNW
Baczki 22 miles WNW
Małkinia Górna 22 miles NNW