Staszów

# The Staszów Book (Sefer Staszów) — Summary

*The Staszów Book* (Hebrew *Sefer Staszów*) is the memorial (yizkor) book of the Jewish community of Staszów, Poland. It was edited by Elhanan Erlich and published in Tel Aviv in 1962 by the Former Residents of Staszów in Israel and in the Diaspora, in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, running to 690 pages ^[1]. The English translation is hosted by JewishGen ^[1].

Origins of the town and Jewish settlement

Staszów is one of the oldest towns in Poland; it developed from a rural into an urban settlement. The village is documented from 1245, and Hyronimus Łaski turned it from a village into a town after obtaining the privilege of holding markets in 1526 from King Zygmund I. Guilds followed: weavers in 1553, tailors/hatters/furriers in 1621, shoemakers in 1655 ^[2].

Jews were expelled from Staszów following a 1618 blood libel, were repatriated only around 1690 following an appeal of the Staroste of Nowo Miesto, Oplinski, and the community then grew. In 1718 the Jews received permission from the town owner Elizabeta Sienawski to settle, and were granted the right to build a synagogue and establish a cemetery — "the two basics of every community." A renewed "Letter of Existence" issued by Prince Alexander Czartoryski in 1772 confirmed the right to keep a synagogue and a cemetery, to practise artisanship and commerce free of the guilds, to brew beer and distil malt, and to hold trials at the Rabbinical court ^[2]. A census of 1764 counted 607 Jews over one year of age, about 104 family heads, of whom twenty were listed as artisans (tailors, hat makers, jewelers, a butcher, a rabbi, teachers, musicians) ^[2].

Communal and religious life

The kehilla (Jewish community council) was reorganised in 1918 after the First World War, when Poland achieved independence. Earlier, communal elections had been held in the large beit midrash, with the secretary of the town council recording votes for three candidates to represent the community ^[3].

The rabbinate is documented across the book. In the 17th century the Landau family occupied the rabbinical chair; Rabbi Yehuda Lev Landau of Szydłów became Rabbi of Kraków and his son Samuel headed the Staszów community ^[2]. Rabbi Mordechai'le Pardes is described as the first Tzaddik from Staszów, a student of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk ^[4]. Later rabbis profiled include Rabbi Yehuda Leib Graubart (the "Rav") and Rabbi Moshe Shealtiel Gerszt, the *Moreh Hora'ah* ^[5].

Institutions and figures

In the 19th century the town had 13 streets, 3 squares and 420 houses (305 stone, 115 wooden); the market square was planted with trees and the town park by the river was constructed in 1886. Institutions included a synagogue, two Catholic churches, two elementary schools, five Jewish *cheders*, a court of law, a post office, a hospital with 25 beds, and a pharmacy. In 1886 the population was 7,971 permanent residents, of whom 5,280 were Jews ^[6].

The shoe industry was the most important branch of business for the 5,000 Jews of the town (about half the general population), alongside grain and wood merchants, groceries and market traders ^[7]. A Cooperative Bank and charitable funds supported communal life: free medical care, the Gemach (interest-free loan) fund, and alms for the poor ^[8]. The Talmud Torah and *cheder metukn* (improved cheder) were supported by community activists ^[8]. Cultural and political movements profiled in the book include the Zionist movement and its offshoots (Hashomer Hatzair, Mizrachi, Agudas Israel, the Bund, the Peretz Library), the Left Poalei Zion, and the HaKoach sport club ^{[9] [10]}.

The interwar period

The interwar chapters describe election campaigns, the coup of Józef Piłsudski in May 1926 and its hopes for Polish Jewry, the 1935 boycott proclamation, and childhood and youth in the town ^{[11] [12]}. The book recalls a Staszów where one "had to live in fear" — fear of the Christian neighbour — alongside vibrant cultural and political life ^[12].

The Holocaust

A ghetto diary opens on 1 September 1939 and records the German attack, the stream of refugees from western Poland, and the daily tightening of decrees ^[13]. By the summer of 1942 the Jewish community of Staszów, swollen with refugees from Warsaw, Łódź and Kraków, numbered more than seven thousand souls herded into a narrow, locked-up ghetto, under the Nazi supervisor Obladin ^[14]. The "Path of Anguish and Destruction" describes the last months in the ghetto and the fate of neighbouring communities — Kielce, Ostrowiec, Opatów, Sandomierz, Chmielnik, Busko-Zdrój, Lagów and Klimontów — as warnings ^[15]. Deportations to Treblinka are attested: a survivor recalls Poles mocking Jews asking "Where is the Treblinka Colony?" ^[16]. The community was destroyed in 1942–1944 ^[14].

Survivors and aftermath

Survivor testimony records escape to the forests. In November 1943 a group of some thirty men, women and children settled in the swamps of the 56th division of the forest, where they were attacked by the gendarmerie of Rytwiany ^[17]. The necrology list transcribed from the Yiddish, reviewed against Alexander Beider's *Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland*, is sorted by Latin alphabet and, as the book itself notes, "accounts for less than half of the victims of the community (the other[s] were not reported in the book)" ^[18]. Memorial chapters also remember the children of the neighbouring communities of Osiek and Połaniec (Plontch) ^{[19] [20]}.