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This Yizkor Book translation is the third of three books about Siedlce. This book is also the most important one because it includes four centuries of the history of the Jewish Community of Siedlce. Yitzchak Kaspi, a Jewish historian who survived the war, wrote the 300 page chapter.
Before the second world war Siedlce had a significant Jewish population, at times being the majority I town. Jews started settling in Siedlce from the mid-16th century. They were inn keepers, merchants and artisans. In the 18th century a Jewish hospital, a Beit Midrash and a Jewish cemetery were established. Siedlce came under Austrian rule after the third partition of Poland until 1809 when it was passed to Russian rule in 1815.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, secular political and cultural activity was evident among the Jews in Siedlce. Various political movements and parties such as Zionists, the Bund, and others existed. Between 1911 and 1939, two Yiddish weeklies were published in town.
In 1939, Jews were 37% of the town’s population. Germans deported over a thousand Jews from elsewhere in Poland to Siedlce in 1940. In March 1941 a three days pogrom in Siedlce orchestrated by the Germans, killed many of its Jewish inhabitants. In August of the same year the Jews were forced into a Ghetto. In August 1942 some 10,000 Siedlce Jews were deported to Treblinka and murdered there. The town’s remaining Jews were sent to extermination on November 25th, 1942.
The Siedlce Jewish community was not restored after the war.
May this book serve as a memorial to the vibrant community of Siedlce that no longer exists.
