Wolkowysk, Poland

WOLKOWYSK Bialystok district, Poland, today Belarus. Jews first settled in the 16th century. By 1847 they numbered 1,429 and in 1897 reached 5,528 (total 10,323). Jews were active as wheat, fruit, and lumber exporters and pioneered light industry, opening hide processing and tobacco processing plants, a weaving mill, brickyard, beer brewery, and steam powered flour mills. The community was typically characterized by Zionist sympathies in religious circles. A yeshiva founded in 1887 reached an enrollment of 300. In 1898 a Jewish hospital was endowed and in 1908 an old age home. A Bund-organized strike put an end to Saturday night work for Jewish factory hands. Under the German occupation in WWI the Jews suffered from severe food shortages and the shutdown of commerce while subjected to forced labor. In its aftermath they suffered from attacks by Polish soldiers. Jewish tradesmen recovered with the help of money from relatives abroad. In the absence of transportation facilities, Jewish carters and porters formed a company to transport goods, saving the town from isolation. The big Jewish Kolontai Company owned flour mills, fruit orchards, a dairy, and timber land. The Barash family ran an iron foundry and machine assembly plant and until 1929 Jews dominated the trade in oil, sugar, and salt and the entire tobacco industry. However, discriminatory government measures led many Jews to emigrate to North and South America and by the 1930s, when their population stood at 7,347, their prominent position in the city's economy was in decline as many shut down their stores. Between the World Wars, both Yiddish and Hebrew schools were in operation. The TOZ organization provided health care for children, free meals and summer camps for the needy, and counseling for expectant mothers. The Zionists dominated the community's political life. Two Jewish weeklies appeared in Hebrew. Under Soviet rule in 1939-41, Jewish businesses were nationalized and artisans organized into cooperatives. The Germans captured Wolkowysk on 29 June 1941. In September, 200 Jews were executed in the forest. On 14 October 1942, 27 Jewish doctors were murdered for allegedly treating partisans. In November, the Jews were transferred to 15 big bunkers in a nearby camp where Jews from the entire province were being held and where starvation and disease claimed 600 lives a day. On 6 and 8 December 1942 all but 1,700 were deported to the Treblinka death camp. The latter were sent to Auschwitz on 26 January 1943.