Biala Podlaska
Encyclopedia
Biała Podlaska AUD is a town in eastern Poland
with 58,047 inhabitants (2005). It is situated in the Lublin Voivodeship
(since 1999), having previously been the capital of Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Biała Podlaska County.
mentioning Biała Podlaska dates to 1481. In the beginning Biała belonged to the Illnicz family. The founder of the city is thought Piotr Janowicz nicknamed "Biały" (Polish for "white"), the hetman
of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
. Biała was then a part of Brześć voivodeship in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (then in union with Poland
).
In 1569 Biała changed hands; the new owners were the Radziwiłł family. Under their rule, Biała had been growing for two and half centuries. In 1622 Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł has built the fortress and the castle. In 1628 Krzysztof Ciborowicz Wilski established Bialska Academy as a regional center of education (since 1633 it was a branch of the Jagiellonian University
, then called Kraków Academy). During this time many churches were erected, as was one hospital. The prosperity period had finished with Swedish invasion in 1655. Then Biała was attacked by Cossacks and Rakoczy armies. The town was significantly destroyed; however, thanks to Michał Radziwiłł and his wife Katarzyna Sobieska
, it was rebuilt. In 1670 Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł gives Biała town rights and the coat of arms, which depicts archangel Michael standing on a dragon.
In 1720 Anna Radziwiłł begins building the tower and the gate - both buildings exist to this day and are the most interesting remains of the castle and palace. In the 18th century the city and the fortress were many times destroyed (mostly as a result of wars) and rebuilt. The last heir, Dominik Radziwiłł, has died 11 November 1813 in France, as a colonel of the Polish army. The palace, which fell into ruin, has been pulled down in 1883.
In 1822-26 a Polish writer, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
, received his primary education in the local academy.
At the end of 19th century Biała was a large garrison town
of the Imperial Russian Army
. Near cross-section of Brzeska Str. and Aleje Tysiclecia Ave. is located a cemetery of soldiers killed during World War I
.
During the Second Polish Republic
(or interwar) period, Biała was growing fast. The town was the seat of the Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów
(PWS), which manufactured Polish airplanes.
There was also a garrison of the 34th infantry regiment of the Polish Armed Forces
. The regiment, formed in 1919, fought successfully in the Polish–Soviet War, and also fought against Germans and Soviets in September campaign of 1939
. The last commander of the regiment, lieutenant colonel Wacław Budrewicz, has been taken prisoner of war by Soviets and murdered by them in 1940 Katyn massacre
.
World War II
stunned the town's growth because of the Nazi
and Soviet repressions. The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939, but withdrew on 26 September to allow the Soviets to occupy the town. On 10 October 1939, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviets departed and the town was reoccupied by the Germans. By the time, Soviets have managed to completely plunder the aforementioned airplane factory, so that nothing but buildings remained.
After Germany attacked the Soviet Union
, war prisoner camps had been set up around Biała, where many thousand Soviet POWs were killed
.
After the war Biała Podlaska has been developing into a more modern city but still retains many of the original Polish features in the central old city. In 1975-1999 Biała Podlaska was a capital city of voivodeship, later it again became a city county, like it was before 1975.
In the 19th century the chasidic
movement established strong roots in Biała Podlaska. A descendant of the Yid Hakodosh of Przysucha
established a chasidic court
there, and it survive to this day, with communities in London, America and various cities in Israel. The name "Bialer rebbe" was immortalized in the consciousness of Eastern Europe
an Jewry, in a story by the secular Yiddish writer Isaac Leib Peretz, Tsvishn Tsvei Berg ("Between Two Mountains"). The chasidim of Kotsk
also had a large presence in Biała Podlaska, some of which later became Gerrer
chasidim.
In 1931, of the population of 10,697, 6,923 (64.7%) were Jewish. The Jewish community in the town had grown rapidly in the second half of the 19th Century, members owning a nail factory, a tannery, a shoe factory, saw-mills, brick-making furnaces, flour mills, a soap factory, a brewery and various other small factories. However, in common with other towns and shtetl
s in Poland, there were also many who lived in poverty. The Jews of Biała Podlaska were typical of the small communities of that time; all were religious to a greater or lesser degree, although some were influenced by the Haskalah
(Enlightenment), and Zionist
movements.
The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939, but withdrew on 26 September to allow the Soviets to occupy the town. On 10 October 1939, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviets departed and the town was reoccupied by the Germans.
600 Jews left the town at the time of the Soviet departure to reside in that part of eastern Poland then under Soviet control. A Judenrat
was formed in November 1939, with Icchak Pirzyc as its head. Insofar as it was possible, the Judenrat attempted to act as the successor to the Kehilla
, the pre-war Jewish Community Council, providing a public kitchen for the poor, supervising the Jewish hospital and providing for other communal needs.
On 1 December 1939, the Germans published a decree requiring all Jews aged 6 and older to wear an armband on their right arm bearing a yellow Star of David
(the colour was later changed to blue). Jews were ordered to move to a separate zone on Grabanow, Janowa, Prosta and Przechodnia Streets. At the same time, a Jewish Ghetto Police
(Ordnungsdienst) was established.
At the end of 1939, 2,000-3,000 Jews, deported from Suwałki and Serock, arrived in the town, increasing the misery in the already overcrowded Jewish quarter. Although there was not a closed ghetto in Biała Podlaska, because of the numbers crammed into the residential area
and the appalling sanitary conditions, there was a typhus
epidemic in early 1940, causing many fatalities.
At about this time, less than 200 survivors of a death march
of Jewish POWs, initially numbering some 880 men, arrived in Biała Podlaska, to be interned in a prisoner-of-war camp there.
In July 1940, a number of Jewish men were sent from Biała Podlaska to the forced labour
camps at Belzec. In the autumn of 1940, the Judenrat's employment office began to conscript workers for the factories built by the Germans in Biała Podlaska and its environs. Work camps were built by the Germans nearby the factories. Hundreds of Jewish tradesmen were incarcerated in seven of the Judenrat's labour camps
situated at the airfield, the train station, the Wineta camp in the Wola district, and elsewhere. Hundreds of other Jews worked in heavy manual labour
paving roads, draining ditches, and constructing sewage facilities, saw mills, and barracks. Many women worked at Duke Potocki's farm “Halas”.
On 15 May 1941, the Jewish POW
camp was closed down, and the surviving prisoners were transported by sealed train to Konskowola, further west. During 1940 and 1941, several hundred Jews from Kraków
and Mlawa were deported to Biała Podlaska. As a result of the many "resettlements" to the town, the Jewish population
of the town had grown to approximately 8,400 in March 1942. On 6 June 1941 an announcement forbade "Aryans
" to do business with Jews. At the end of June 1941 a number of Jews were sent to the concentration camp
at Auschwitz
as punishment for giving bread to Soviet prisoners of war marching through the town. They were among the first Jewish victims to perish in Auschwitz.
On 6 June 1942, a rumour spread throughout the ghetto that the Jews were to be forced to leave Biała Podlaska and evacuated to the west. Only workers at the forced labour camps or those employed at German factories as well as those possessing a labour permit would be exempt from the deportation.
On 10 June at 5 a.m. 3,000 Jews, among them the elderly, women, and children were assembled in the synagogue courtyard. Many of the Jews did not report as ordered and fled to the forests. German police led the assembled Jews to the railroad station. The next day, 11 June 1942, the deportees were herded into freight cars and were deported to the death camp at Sobibor. When the deportees disembarked from the train, believing they had been sent to a labour camp, a letter was handed to the SS
from the municipality of Biała Podlaska requesting decent treatment for the arriving Jews. For this act of “insolence” and “impudence”, 200 of the Jews were selected for “special treatment”; all others were immediately gassed. The “special treatment” consisted of removing luggage from Camp ll and loading it onto a train, whilst running a gauntlet of guards who whipped and clubbed the prisoners as they ran. The Jews who had been the subject of this “special treatment” were then also gassed.
Following the first deportation, the Germans reduced the area of the ghetto. On the night of 4 August 1942, gendarmes, German police, Jewish Ghetto Police, and Polish police cordoned off the ghetto area, took men out of their homes and gathered them in the market square, where the men’s labour permits were examined. Afterwards the men were freed, but on that same night 19 Jews were executed. On 12 August, German gendarmes and Ukrainian auxiliaries began arresting Jewish men and collected them in a square in the Wola neighbourhood. The Judenrat complained to the German authorities and the workers were released. However after a few days the arrests were renewed. About 400 Jews, including members of the Judenrat were deported to KL Majdanek. 50 Jews remained there. The other 350 men were transferred to work on the railroad at Golab, between Lublin and Pulawy.
In September 1942, 3,000 deportees from the towns of Janow and Konstantynow were transported to Biała Podlaska. The overcrowding in the ghetto became desperate. Glätt, an SD man, took any valuables the Jews still retained and imposed a “fine” of 45,000 zlotys. The Jews sensed that the Germans intended to soon liquidate them. Many attempted to escape to the forests, to dig bunkers, and prepared hiding places for themselves or hid themselves in basements.
The second deportation of the Jews of Biała Podlaska began on 26 September 1942 and ended on 1 October 1942. Gestapo men, the Gendarmerie, the German and Polish police and soldiers from the nearby airport all participated in this Aktion. The night before the Aktion the Germans encircled the ghetto. The following morning the Jews were driven from their homes and concentrated in the New Market Square (Rynek). Jews who resisted deportation were shot on the spot. On the same day, 15 patients and two nurses at the Jewish Hospital were shot by the Gestapo. A number of Jews were removed from the assembly and were sent as slave labourers to the airport at Malaszewicze, near Terespol
. Most of the people who were left in the market square were driven to Miedzyrzec Podlaski in the wagons of peasants from the surrounding area. On the way many were murdered in the Woronica Forest.
On 6 October 1942, the Germans deported about 1,200 workers from the labour camps in the vicinity of Biała Podlaska to Międzyrzec Podlaski
. Only a few managed to escape to the forests. Upon their arrival at the Miedzyrzec train station, the Germans joined most of those who had been deported a few days earlier to the group of workers and brought all of them to the local ghetto
, from where they were subsequently deported to the Treblinka
death camp.
The fate of the remaining deportees from Biała Podlaska was shared with the rest of the Jews of Miedzyrzec. In July 1943, after several further Aktionen at the end of 1942 and in May 1943, the Miedzyrzec Ghetto was liquidated and its inhabitants were deported to Treblinka, where they were murdered. The Germans left a group of 300 Jewish workers in Biała Podlaska to clear the ghetto and to destroy the synagogue
and the small prayer houses. In May 1944, the surviving workers were transferred to KL Majdanek
.
Biała Podlaska was captured by the Red Army
on 26 July 1944. Of the more than 6,000 Jewish residents of the town in 1939, only 300 remained alive at the war’s end, and most of them left Poland in the years after the war. In 1946 a pogrom resulted in the murder of 2 young Jews who had returned from the Death Camps or the Partisan Units in nearby forests surrounding Minsk, including the members of the Zorin Commandos. Those murdered were buried in the nearby Międzyrzec Podlaski
(Mizrich) cemetery as the Jewish cemetery in Biała had been destroyed by Germans.
The parts of the city which was originally the Jewish "quarter" are still existing.
The Jewish community is commemorated by a memorial erected at the site of the Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis Another memorial was recently erected by Jewish survivors from the town now living in the USA. Two former private prayer houses of the Jewish community are still in existence. The cemetery otherwise stands as an empty reminder of the hole that was ripped out of Biała Podlaska by the Holocaust. Apart from Israel
, Melbourne
in Australia has the largest number of Jewish Biała Podlaska survivors - all now very aged.
Notables connected with Biała =
(Sejm) elected from this constituency
with:
Brest
in Belarus
Niort
in France
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
with 58,047 inhabitants (2005). It is situated in the Lublin Voivodeship
Lublin Voivodeship
- Administrative division :Lublin Voivodeship is divided into 24 counties : 4 city counties and 20 land counties. These are further divided into 213 gminas....
(since 1999), having previously been the capital of Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Biała Podlaska County.
History
The first historical documentHistorical document
Historical documents are documents that contain important information about a person, place, or event.Most famous historical documents are either laws, accounts of battles , or the exploits of the powerful...
mentioning Biała Podlaska dates to 1481. In the beginning Biała belonged to the Illnicz family. The founder of the city is thought Piotr Janowicz nicknamed "Biały" (Polish for "white"), the hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
. Biała was then a part of Brześć voivodeship in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (then in union with Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
).
In 1569 Biała changed hands; the new owners were the Radziwiłł family. Under their rule, Biała had been growing for two and half centuries. In 1622 Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł has built the fortress and the castle. In 1628 Krzysztof Ciborowicz Wilski established Bialska Academy as a regional center of education (since 1633 it was a branch of the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
, then called Kraków Academy). During this time many churches were erected, as was one hospital. The prosperity period had finished with Swedish invasion in 1655. Then Biała was attacked by Cossacks and Rakoczy armies. The town was significantly destroyed; however, thanks to Michał Radziwiłł and his wife Katarzyna Sobieska
Katarzyna Sobieska
Katarzyna Sobieska was the sister of King of Poland Jan III Sobieski and a noble lady. She married Władysław Dominik Zasławski in 1650. She was later married to Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł on June 13, 1658....
, it was rebuilt. In 1670 Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł gives Biała town rights and the coat of arms, which depicts archangel Michael standing on a dragon.
In 1720 Anna Radziwiłł begins building the tower and the gate - both buildings exist to this day and are the most interesting remains of the castle and palace. In the 18th century the city and the fortress were many times destroyed (mostly as a result of wars) and rebuilt. The last heir, Dominik Radziwiłł, has died 11 November 1813 in France, as a colonel of the Polish army. The palace, which fell into ruin, has been pulled down in 1883.
In 1822-26 a Polish writer, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish writer, historian and journalist who produced more than 200 novels and 150 novellas, short stories, and art reviews He is best known for his epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine novels in seventy-nine parts.As a novelist writing about...
, received his primary education in the local academy.
At the end of 19th century Biała was a large garrison town
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
of the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
. Near cross-section of Brzeska Str. and Aleje Tysiclecia Ave. is located a cemetery of soldiers killed during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
During the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
(or interwar) period, Biała was growing fast. The town was the seat of the Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów
Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów
Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów - Podlasie Aircraft Works - was the Polish aerospace manufacturer between 1923 and 1939, located in Biała Podlaska.-History:...
(PWS), which manufactured Polish airplanes.
There was also a garrison of the 34th infantry regiment of the Polish Armed Forces
Polish Armed Forces
Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej are the national defense forces of Poland...
. The regiment, formed in 1919, fought successfully in the Polish–Soviet War, and also fought against Germans and Soviets in September campaign of 1939
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
. The last commander of the regiment, lieutenant colonel Wacław Budrewicz, has been taken prisoner of war by Soviets and murdered by them in 1940 Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
stunned the town's growth because of the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and Soviet repressions. The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939, but withdrew on 26 September to allow the Soviets to occupy the town. On 10 October 1939, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviets departed and the town was reoccupied by the Germans. By the time, Soviets have managed to completely plunder the aforementioned airplane factory, so that nothing but buildings remained.
After Germany attacked the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, war prisoner camps had been set up around Biała, where many thousand Soviet POWs were killed
Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs
The Nazi crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War relate to the deliberately genocidal policies taken towards the captured soldiers of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany...
.
After the war Biała Podlaska has been developing into a more modern city but still retains many of the original Polish features in the central old city. In 1975-1999 Biała Podlaska was a capital city of voivodeship, later it again became a city county, like it was before 1975.
History of Jewish community in Biała Podlaska
The first mention of Jewish settlement in Biała Podlaska dates from 1621 when 30 Jewish families were granted rights of residence there. In 1841 there were 2,200 Jews out of a total population of 3,588; in 1897, 6,549 out of 13,090; and in 1921, 6,874 out of 13,000. Four Yiddish newspapers were published there between the two world wars.In the 19th century the chasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
movement established strong roots in Biała Podlaska. A descendant of the Yid Hakodosh of Przysucha
Przysucha
Przysucha is a town in Poland. Located in the Masovian Voivodeship, about 100 km southwest of Warsaw, it is the capital of Przysucha County. It has 6,762 inhabitants . Its name in Yiddish is פשיסחא or פשיסכא . It was home to a number of prominent Hasidic Rabbis, such as The Holy Jew and...
established a chasidic court
Biala (Hasidic dynasty)
The Biala Hasidic dynasty originated from Poland. The Rebbes of Biala are descended from Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Rabinowicz, known as the Yid Hakodosh .-Lineage:...
there, and it survive to this day, with communities in London, America and various cities in Israel. The name "Bialer rebbe" was immortalized in the consciousness of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an Jewry, in a story by the secular Yiddish writer Isaac Leib Peretz, Tsvishn Tsvei Berg ("Between Two Mountains"). The chasidim of Kotsk
Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, better known as the Kotzker Rebbe was a Hasidic rabbi and leader.-Life:Born to a non-Hasidic family in Goraj near Lublin, Poland, he became attracted to Hasidim in his youth. He was known for having acquired impressive Talmudic and Kabbalistic knowledge at a...
also had a large presence in Biała Podlaska, some of which later became Gerrer
Ger (Hasidic dynasty)
Ger, or Gur is a Hasidic dynasty originating from Ger, the Yiddish name of Góra Kalwaria, a small town in Poland....
chasidim.
In 1931, of the population of 10,697, 6,923 (64.7%) were Jewish. The Jewish community in the town had grown rapidly in the second half of the 19th Century, members owning a nail factory, a tannery, a shoe factory, saw-mills, brick-making furnaces, flour mills, a soap factory, a brewery and various other small factories. However, in common with other towns and shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
s in Poland, there were also many who lived in poverty. The Jews of Biała Podlaska were typical of the small communities of that time; all were religious to a greater or lesser degree, although some were influenced by the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
(Enlightenment), and Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
movements.
The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939, but withdrew on 26 September to allow the Soviets to occupy the town. On 10 October 1939, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviets departed and the town was reoccupied by the Germans.
600 Jews left the town at the time of the Soviet departure to reside in that part of eastern Poland then under Soviet control. A Judenrat
Judenrat
Judenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
was formed in November 1939, with Icchak Pirzyc as its head. Insofar as it was possible, the Judenrat attempted to act as the successor to the Kehilla
Kehilla (modern)
The Kehilla is the local Jewish communal structure that was reinstated in the early twentieth century as a modern, secular, and religious sequel of the Qahal in Central and Eastern Europe, more particularly in Poland's Second Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukrainian People's Republic,...
, the pre-war Jewish Community Council, providing a public kitchen for the poor, supervising the Jewish hospital and providing for other communal needs.
On 1 December 1939, the Germans published a decree requiring all Jews aged 6 and older to wear an armband on their right arm bearing a yellow Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
(the colour was later changed to blue). Jews were ordered to move to a separate zone on Grabanow, Janowa, Prosta and Przechodnia Streets. At the same time, a Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Police Service and referred to by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Jewish ghettos of Europe by local Judenrat councils under orders of occupying German Nazis.Members of the did not have official...
(Ordnungsdienst) was established.
At the end of 1939, 2,000-3,000 Jews, deported from Suwałki and Serock, arrived in the town, increasing the misery in the already overcrowded Jewish quarter. Although there was not a closed ghetto in Biała Podlaska, because of the numbers crammed into the residential area
Residential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
and the appalling sanitary conditions, there was a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic in early 1940, causing many fatalities.
At about this time, less than 200 survivors of a death march
Death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees. Those marching must walk over long distances for an extremely long period of time and are not supplied with food or water...
of Jewish POWs, initially numbering some 880 men, arrived in Biała Podlaska, to be interned in a prisoner-of-war camp there.
In July 1940, a number of Jewish men were sent from Biała Podlaska to the forced labour
Unfree labour
Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
camps at Belzec. In the autumn of 1940, the Judenrat's employment office began to conscript workers for the factories built by the Germans in Biała Podlaska and its environs. Work camps were built by the Germans nearby the factories. Hundreds of Jewish tradesmen were incarcerated in seven of the Judenrat's labour camps
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
situated at the airfield, the train station, the Wineta camp in the Wola district, and elsewhere. Hundreds of other Jews worked in heavy manual labour
Manual labour
Manual labour , manual or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals...
paving roads, draining ditches, and constructing sewage facilities, saw mills, and barracks. Many women worked at Duke Potocki's farm “Halas”.
On 15 May 1941, the Jewish POW
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp was closed down, and the surviving prisoners were transported by sealed train to Konskowola, further west. During 1940 and 1941, several hundred Jews from Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
and Mlawa were deported to Biała Podlaska. As a result of the many "resettlements" to the town, the Jewish population
Jewish population
Jewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...
of the town had grown to approximately 8,400 in March 1942. On 6 June 1941 an announcement forbade "Aryans
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
" to do business with Jews. At the end of June 1941 a number of Jews were sent to the concentration camp
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
at Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
as punishment for giving bread to Soviet prisoners of war marching through the town. They were among the first Jewish victims to perish in Auschwitz.
On 6 June 1942, a rumour spread throughout the ghetto that the Jews were to be forced to leave Biała Podlaska and evacuated to the west. Only workers at the forced labour camps or those employed at German factories as well as those possessing a labour permit would be exempt from the deportation.
On 10 June at 5 a.m. 3,000 Jews, among them the elderly, women, and children were assembled in the synagogue courtyard. Many of the Jews did not report as ordered and fled to the forests. German police led the assembled Jews to the railroad station. The next day, 11 June 1942, the deportees were herded into freight cars and were deported to the death camp at Sobibor. When the deportees disembarked from the train, believing they had been sent to a labour camp, a letter was handed to the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
from the municipality of Biała Podlaska requesting decent treatment for the arriving Jews. For this act of “insolence” and “impudence”, 200 of the Jews were selected for “special treatment”; all others were immediately gassed. The “special treatment” consisted of removing luggage from Camp ll and loading it onto a train, whilst running a gauntlet of guards who whipped and clubbed the prisoners as they ran. The Jews who had been the subject of this “special treatment” were then also gassed.
Following the first deportation, the Germans reduced the area of the ghetto. On the night of 4 August 1942, gendarmes, German police, Jewish Ghetto Police, and Polish police cordoned off the ghetto area, took men out of their homes and gathered them in the market square, where the men’s labour permits were examined. Afterwards the men were freed, but on that same night 19 Jews were executed. On 12 August, German gendarmes and Ukrainian auxiliaries began arresting Jewish men and collected them in a square in the Wola neighbourhood. The Judenrat complained to the German authorities and the workers were released. However after a few days the arrests were renewed. About 400 Jews, including members of the Judenrat were deported to KL Majdanek. 50 Jews remained there. The other 350 men were transferred to work on the railroad at Golab, between Lublin and Pulawy.
In September 1942, 3,000 deportees from the towns of Janow and Konstantynow were transported to Biała Podlaska. The overcrowding in the ghetto became desperate. Glätt, an SD man, took any valuables the Jews still retained and imposed a “fine” of 45,000 zlotys. The Jews sensed that the Germans intended to soon liquidate them. Many attempted to escape to the forests, to dig bunkers, and prepared hiding places for themselves or hid themselves in basements.
The second deportation of the Jews of Biała Podlaska began on 26 September 1942 and ended on 1 October 1942. Gestapo men, the Gendarmerie, the German and Polish police and soldiers from the nearby airport all participated in this Aktion. The night before the Aktion the Germans encircled the ghetto. The following morning the Jews were driven from their homes and concentrated in the New Market Square (Rynek). Jews who resisted deportation were shot on the spot. On the same day, 15 patients and two nurses at the Jewish Hospital were shot by the Gestapo. A number of Jews were removed from the assembly and were sent as slave labourers to the airport at Malaszewicze, near Terespol
Terespol
Terespol is a town in eastern Poland on the border with Belarus. It lies on the border river Bug, directly opposite the city of Brest, Belarus...
. Most of the people who were left in the market square were driven to Miedzyrzec Podlaski in the wagons of peasants from the surrounding area. On the way many were murdered in the Woronica Forest.
On 6 October 1942, the Germans deported about 1,200 workers from the labour camps in the vicinity of Biała Podlaska to Międzyrzec Podlaski
Miedzyrzec Podlaski
Międzyrzec Podlaski is a city in Biała Podlaska County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with the population of 17,162 inhabitants as of 2006. The total area of the city is 20.03 km2...
. Only a few managed to escape to the forests. Upon their arrival at the Miedzyrzec train station, the Germans joined most of those who had been deported a few days earlier to the group of workers and brought all of them to the local ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
, from where they were subsequently deported to the Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
death camp.
The fate of the remaining deportees from Biała Podlaska was shared with the rest of the Jews of Miedzyrzec. In July 1943, after several further Aktionen at the end of 1942 and in May 1943, the Miedzyrzec Ghetto was liquidated and its inhabitants were deported to Treblinka, where they were murdered. The Germans left a group of 300 Jewish workers in Biała Podlaska to clear the ghetto and to destroy the synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
and the small prayer houses. In May 1944, the surviving workers were transferred to KL Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
.
Biała Podlaska was captured by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
on 26 July 1944. Of the more than 6,000 Jewish residents of the town in 1939, only 300 remained alive at the war’s end, and most of them left Poland in the years after the war. In 1946 a pogrom resulted in the murder of 2 young Jews who had returned from the Death Camps or the Partisan Units in nearby forests surrounding Minsk, including the members of the Zorin Commandos. Those murdered were buried in the nearby Międzyrzec Podlaski
Miedzyrzec Podlaski
Międzyrzec Podlaski is a city in Biała Podlaska County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with the population of 17,162 inhabitants as of 2006. The total area of the city is 20.03 km2...
(Mizrich) cemetery as the Jewish cemetery in Biała had been destroyed by Germans.
The parts of the city which was originally the Jewish "quarter" are still existing.
The Jewish community is commemorated by a memorial erected at the site of the Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis Another memorial was recently erected by Jewish survivors from the town now living in the USA. Two former private prayer houses of the Jewish community are still in existence. The cemetery otherwise stands as an empty reminder of the hole that was ripped out of Biała Podlaska by the Holocaust. Apart from Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in Australia has the largest number of Jewish Biała Podlaska survivors - all now very aged.
Historic buildings
- St. Anne's ChurchSt. Anne's Church, Biała PodlaskaSt. Anne's Church, in Biała Podlaska, Poland is a Baroque Roman Catholic church. It was originally built in 1572, on the site of an earlier shrine, as a Protestant church dedicated to the Arianism doctrine. The Protestants were expelled in 1596 by Mikołaj Krzysztof "the Orphan" Radziwiłł. Between...
- 1572 - St. Anthony's Church - 1672-1684
- Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 1759
- Building Academy of Biała - 1628, at the present time: I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Józefa Ignacego Kraszewskiego w Białej Podlaskiej.
- Postpalace complex
- Old city
Galleries
- Galeria Podlaska
- Galeria Ulica Krzywa (en. "Crooked Street" Gallery)
- Galeria Autorska Jakusza Maksymiuka (Janusz Maksymiuk's Gallery)
Museums
- Muzeum Południowego Podlasia ( en. Museum of Southern Podlasie)
- Oddział Martyrologiczno-Historyczny (Martyrological and Historic Section)
Festivals
- Podlasie Jazz Festival
- Biała Blues Festival
- Podlaska Jesień Teatralna (en. Podlasie Theatrical Autumn)
Higher Education
- Zamiejscowy Wydział Wychowania Fizycznego w Białej Podlaskiej - faculty by Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw
- Państwowa Szkoła Wyższa im. Papieża Jana Pawła II w Białej Podlaskiej
- Branch a Kazimierz Pułaski Technical University of Radom
Notables connected with Biała =
- Józef Ignacy KraszewskiJózef Ignacy KraszewskiJózef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish writer, historian and journalist who produced more than 200 novels and 150 novellas, short stories, and art reviews He is best known for his epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine novels in seventy-nine parts.As a novelist writing about...
(1812–1887) - writer, journalist, author about 200 novels, graduate Biała's college. - Karol Stanisław "Panie Kochanku" Radziwiłł (1734–1790) - noble, old proproetor Biała.
- Apolinary HartglasApolinary HartglasMaksymilian Apolinary Hartglas – a Zionist activist and one of the main political leaders of Polish Jews during the interwar period, a lawyer, a publicist, and a Sejm deputy from 1919 to 1930.-Early life and education:Hartglas was born into a lawyer family from Podlasie...
(1883–1953) - lawyer, publicist, Jewish politician, parliament deputy from 1919 to 1930. - Michael Kazimierski (1989-Present).
Politics - Biała Podlaska/Chełm/Zamość constituency
Members of ParliamentMember of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(Sejm) elected from this constituency
- Przemysław Andrejuk, LPRLeague of Polish FamiliesThe League of Polish Families is a right-wing political party in Poland. It was represented in the Polish parliament, forming part of the cabinet of Jarosław Kaczyński, until the latter dissolved in September 2007....
- Tadeusz Badach, SLD-UP
- Arkadiusz Bratkowski, PSL
- Jan Byra, SLD-UP
- Zbigniew Janowski, SLD-UP
- Marian Kwiatkowski, Samoobrona
- Henryk Lewczuk, LPR
- Jerzy Michalski, Samoobrona
- Lech Nikolski, SLD-UP
- Szczepan Skomra, SLD-UP
- Ryszard Stanibuła, PSL
- Franciszek Stefaniuk, PSL
- Wojciech Wierzejski, LPR
- Stanisław Żmijan, PO
Twin towns - Sister cities
Biała Podlaska is twinnedTown twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
with:
Brest
Brest, Belarus
Brest , formerly also Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk , is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the city of Terespol, where the Bug River and Mukhavets rivers meet...
in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
Niort
Niort
Niort is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France.The Latin name of the city was Novioritum.The population of Niort is 60,486 and more than 137,000 people live in the urban area....
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
External links
- Biała Podlaska Powiat Website On this page are several maps of the powiat and a link table to take you to individual gmina pages, where you will find information about every city, town, village and hamlet in the powiat.
- Biała Podlaska Gmina Website Maps and further information available
- Photos and History of BP today online (Polish website)
- More Photos of BP today online (Polish website)
- Jewish Gen
- Wiesenthal Centre
- Biała Podlaska - Photo Album - 662 photos and 225 digital paintings discovering the beauty of Biała Podlaska region. (Polish website)
- Holokaust na terenie regionu bialskopodlaskiego w czasie II wojny światowe (Polish website)