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Museum of Family History links that refer to Zambrów:
A Short History of Zambrów
Postcards from Home:
The Main Shul of Zambrow
The Road to Bialystok
Jagodnik/Chaims/Solomonik Families
The Archie Marcus
Collection--The Yablonkas
The Yarosalimski Family
School Photos from Zambrow 1920s
The Srebrnik
Family
Rywka Brzoza and
Elsa Rywka Kowalefska
The Cooperman Family
The Leibe Rozing
Family
Zambrow Students 1928
Young Beitarim
Meishl Dzevko
The Slowik Family
The Zedeck Family
The Jelen Family (Hy Yellin Collection)
The
Families of Meir and Sarah Jelin
Benjamin Bednovitch
Unknown Bednowicz Relative
The Furmanowicz Sisters
Srulke Lichtensztejn
Group
Photo No. 1
The Piekarewicz-Sosnowicz Families
Lipman Dov Ber Choroszcz
The
Children of Lipman Dov Ber Choroszcz
Mordka Choroszcz
Identities Unknown
How We Worked: The Apple
Orchard
Photos of Zambrow 1930s
Synagogues of Europe: The Synagogue at Zambrow
Visions of Zambrow 1985
How Our Families Came to America: From
Zambrow to Ellis Island
The Map Room: Zambrow and its
surrounds 1915-25
Zambrow town map
Zembrower Society Meeting in Israel
Living in America: Michael Lasky
Society Gates: Zambrow
The Goldberg-Ronik Wedding Party
Landsmanshaftn in America:
Workmen's Circle Zembrover
Progressive Branch 149
Landsmanshaftn in America:
Testimonial/Memorial Meeting for Ben Miller
Landsmanshaftn in Israel: Zembrower Society
Meeting
Landsmanshaftn in Israel: Committee of
Zambrowe in Israel
Cemetery Project: Zambrow society plots in New
York
**
Zambrow Forum (Museum of Family
History discussion group)
Trip to Zambrow: Morris Spector, 1992
External links of interest to Zambrów researchers:
Kirkut in Zambrow
JRI
Poland Zambrow Surname List
JRI
Poland Zambrow page
*If you have material that you would like to add
to this site that you believe would be of interest to
other Zambrow researchers, please contact Steve Lasky at
postmaster@museumoffamilyhistory.com .
Also visit other web pages that have been created for more Lomza
Gubernia towns and cities:
Zambrów
is a small town of about 25,000 inhabitants in northeastern Poland. It is
located at the crossroads of the routes from Warszawa to Białystok and
from Łomza to Siedlce. Zambrów is located by the riverside of
Jabłonka, at the border between the regions of Mazovia and Podlasie. The
name of the town comes from Old-Polish noun “zzbr” (European bison), that
means a place where bisons live.
The beginnings of the town were connected with
stanitza (located at the edge of the wilderness) established for lands
owners - Mazovian princes who were hunting in those areas. As early as the
13th century, Zambrów was a very important settlement with a separate
parish. In about 1430 the town received civic rights. In 1526, after the
extinction of Mazovian princes male line of descent, Zambrów, with the
whole Mazovia region, was annexed to the Kingdom of Poland and became a
royal town. After the incorporation of the Mazovian Duchy to the Kingdom
of Poland, Zambrów became the capital of the administrative district in
the district of Łomza in Mazovian province. The rapid development of
Zambrów stopped during the Swedish-Polish war in 1655 for almost one
hundred and fifty years. After the third partition of Poland, Zambrów was
located in Prussia and, after peace was achieved at Tilsit in 1807, in the
Duchy of Warsaw. After the Congress of Vienna, Zambrów was annexed to the
Congress Kingdom of Poland in the Russian empire. After the January 1863
uprising, Zambrów lost town rights. In the eighth decade of the nineteenth
century, in the southern part of the town, the construction of barracks
(the biggest in this part of Russia) was started. From this time until the
early part of the fifth decade of the twentieth century, the town
development was under army influence. In 1919, Zambrów regained town
rights. During the Interwar Period, in Zambrów, the 71st regiment of
infantry was stationed, there were Officer Cadets of Infantry Reserve
School and Mazovian School of Officer Cadets. In 1939, Zambrów was for a
short time occupied by the German army that murdered many of civilians and
captives. Based on the Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty from 1939, Zambrów had
been situated in Soviet Union (Belorussian SSR). During the Soviet
occupation, people from Zambrów and its surroundings were being sent into
exile to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The town was again
occupied by the German army in June 1941. At this time in Zambrów, there
were prisoner-of-war camps for Soviet and Italian captives as well as for
the Jews and Polish people. Zambrów was occupied by the Soviet army in
August 1944. At this time many favoured independence. Anti-communist
squads were taking action in forests around the town. In Zambrów (at the
place of barracks), as a result of a six-year plan, cotton works were
built. This led to rapid development of the town. For more about Zambrów,
its history, monuments and present, visit
www.zambrow.pl .
The presence of Jews in
Zambrów is first noted during the eighteenth century. The few Jews who
lived in Zambrów at the end of eighteenth century (thirty-two Jews – 5.8%
of the total population of five-hundred and fifty-four people) were not
organized into a community. At this time, Zambrów was under the
jurisdiction of Tykocin. The Jews of Zambrów came mostly from the
neighboring community of Jabłonka where Jews had buried their dead, and
also from Zambrów, where the Jewish community had been established in
1830. An upsurge in the Jewish population in Zambrów occurred in the early
nineteenth century (the number of then increased tenfold). From this time,
the number of Orthodox Jews was still increasing, outnumbering the Polish
population (1859 - 65.2 %; 1897 - 64.8 %; 1909 – 58.7 %). An influx of
Polish people and the development of the military garrison changed the
percentage of Jews in Zambrów. Until the beginning of the Second World
War, Jews in Zambrów accounted for fifty percent of the total number of
people (in the middle thirties of the twentieth century, 3,330 Jews lived
in Zambrów, out of a total population of 7,620).
In 1895, a splendid
synagogue was built. Some Jews were engaged in the creation of Soviet
laws. In the summer of 1920, after the Polish-Soviet war, Zambrów was
under control of the Red Army for a short time. Zambrów Jews engaged in
petty trade and crafts. What advantage they had led to many conflicts with
local Christians. The biggest took place in the second decade of the
twentieth century, when in view of a camp of National Democratic
agitators, Jewish businesses were blocked. However, these conflicts did
not have a great influence on the buoyant development of the Jewish part
of the town. During the interwar period, Zambrów was the home to many
Jewish social organizations (e.g. Jewish Boy Scouts), political parties
(Bund, Poalei Zion), educational (schools, kindergartens), cultural and
athletic organizations. There were also Jewish houses of prayer, a
synagogue, cinema and hospital. Jewish population and clergy took part in
town life, participated in patriotic commemorations. Services were
celebrated not only in the Catholic church, but also in synagogue. The
Rabbi in Zambrów dispensed ministrations in the military garrison.
Due to the
Molotow-Ribbentrop Treaty of 1939, Zambrów was under Soviet
administration, although in September 1939, Zambrów was for a few days
occupied by Nazi squads. At this time, the first murders were committed -
Polish civilians, prisoners and about fifty Jews died. During the Soviet
occupation, Jews from German-occupied Poland and those living well into
the U.S.S.R.) were coming in Zambrów. Zambrów fell once again to the
Germans in June 1941. At this time, about ninety people were murdered. In
August and September, two actions were carried out in which over two
thousand Jews were murdered in the regions of Szumowo and Kołaki.
The Jews who remained were
forced into a ghetto created in the centre of the town. In the barracks, a
temporary camp for Jews from the vicinity of Zambrów was set up. In the
winter of 1942-1943, both the ghetto and the camp were liquidated. People
were transported to Czyzew and then to Auschwitz.
In Zambrów today, there is
almost no trace of Jews. The Jewish part of a town was damaged during the
Second World War, though later it was rebuilt. There is no Boznicza Street
with a synagogue anymore. Only the Jewish cemetery and a few tenement
houses, built at the turn of nineteenth century, still exist.
Jews from Zambrów
emigrated from the start of twentieth century. In the twenties, Shlomo
Goren, an Israel rabbi born in Zambrów, left the town. After the war, only
a few survivors from Zambrów and the vicinity, remained. Others returned
from the Soviet Union. Most of the survivors left again for Białystok and
Łódz, eventually leaving Poland. Societies of emigrants from Zambrów were
established in the United States, Argentina, France and Israel. A memorial
book, ”Sefer Zambrow", in Hebrew and Yiddish with an English summary, was
published in 1963.
Andrzej Zawistowski
Bioliography:
The Book of Zambrov, ed.
Yom-Tov Lewinsky, Tel Aviv 1963.
Encyclopaedia Judaica,
vol. 16, Jerusalem 1971, s. 923.
Józef
Stanisław Mroczek, Zambrów. Zarys dziejów, Białystok 1982.
Tomasz
Wizniewski, Dzieje Gminy Zydowskiej w Zambrowie, "Wiadomozci Zambrowskie",
1991, nr 5/6, s. 3-7
Andrzej M.
Zawistowski, Zagłada, "Wiadomozi Zambrowskie", 1996, nr 2 (38), s. 19.
**Zambrów
1930s** |
|
A Market Day
cir 1930s |
Market Day
cir 1930s |
Marketplace on
Saturday afternoon
cir 1930s |
A spot in the
marketplace
cir 1930s |
Germans in Zambrów
Sept 1939 |
Zambrów during WWII
1939 |
Bridge on Jablonka River |
Rynek (Town Square) |
ul. Wodna |
ul. Kosciuszki |
Zambrów
1935 |
Entrance to Officers
Cadets of Infantry
Reserve School
cir 1930s |
Monument to
1863
Uprising
cir 1930s |
Zambrów
synagogue |
Entrance to
synagogue |
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**Visions
of Zambrów
1985** |
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