Zelwa

The first Jews settled in Zelwa in the 17th century. In 1720, a fair was established in Zelwa, and it became one of the largest of its kind in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This fair attracted even more Jews to the town. The all-Russian census of 1897 recorded the presence of 1,844 Jews in Zelwa, who made up 65.8 percent of the total population. By the end of the 19th century, both a Zionist cell and a chapter of the autonomist socialist Bund party had sprung up in Zelwa. After World War I and the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, Zelwa became part of the reborn Polish State. The Polish census of 1921 recorded the presence of 1,319 Jews in the town (sixty-four percent of the total population). The economic situation in postwar Zelwa deteriorated, and many Jews left the town over the years, immigrating to the Americas and to the Land of Israel. Numerous Zionist groups were active in Zelwa, ranging from the leftist Hashomer Hatzair, through the moderately leftist Poale Zion party and the centrist General Zionists, to the rightist Betar. There was also a cell of the Bund in the town. In September 1939, World War II began, and Zelwa was occupied by the Soviets, who suppressed all forms of non-communist activity and nationalized all the businesses. 2,230 refugees from the German-occupied areas of Poland, most of them Jewish, were recorded in Zelwa in August 1940. However, only a minority of them remained in the town by June 22, 1941, the day of the German invasion of the USSR, the rest having moved on elsewhere, or been deported eastward by the Soviet authorities. Zelwa was occupied by the Germans on July 1, 1941. For the local Jews, the occupation began with a wave of Nazi atrocities and wanton killings. On July 8 or 11, an SS squad that had arrived in Zelwa shot thirty-three Jewish men who were members of the local intelligentsia, and subjected the rest of the Jews to abuse. Some Jews were beaten to death. In the summer of 1942, the Nazis hung seven Jews for the "illegal" slaughter of cows for the ghetto inmates. On November 2, 1942, the Germans transferred the Jews to the transit camp in Kiełbasin, and from there to Auschwitz. In the course of the operation, they shot sixty-five elderly and infirm Jews who could not get to the railway station on their own. Zelwa was liberated by the Red Army on July 12, 1944.