THE JEWS OF NORTHERN MASOVIA





WALDEMAR  KONTEWICZ



                                                                                                                                          No bird sang here since long, long ago.
                                                                                                                                          No echo reaches outside the broken walls.
                                                                                                                                          The City of my memory
                                                                                                                                          Is entombed in silence.

                                                                                                                                          Avraham Cykiert
                                                                                                                                          The Synagogue Where I Pray


It has been a long time since the written word has taken a ride in the postal compartment of an express train or a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the steamboat Carpathia. A little bit later the word acquired wings and learned how to fly. Thus, letters became airborne – but not for long. Colorful postcards from a sweet aunt, fast traveling on jets, have replaced long, thoughtful letters composed in Dickens' style. This notwithstanding, the life of Concorde supersonic cards is also going to come to an end; very soon the Statue of Liberty stamp will only be found in a collector’s album. The ritual of peeling the little stamps off white envelopes with the aid of a kettle's steam will soon become a story passé for kids corrupted by virtual reality.

Very retro are the postcards which recently a Canada Post mailman slipped into my mailbox. These postcards, all with similar, now "ancient" themes, are collage compositions called "The Jews of Northern Masovia". The black, trilingual – Polish-Hebrew-English – postal seal announced the Tel Aviv March 2002 annual meeting of the Roof Committee of the twenty-one former townships of Northern Masovia, Poland. These artistically crafted memorabilia were sent to Eretz Israel, two sets were also sent to Canada and one to Sweden.

At present, not much is widely known about, and little physical evidence is left of those of the People Israel who for hundreds of years settled in Northern Masovia. It is so despite their non eradicable entry to Polish history, sealed with the blood of the Holocaust. Descendants of the famous cabbalist Baal Shem Tov and the scholar Maimonides have disappeared also from the collective memory of their Polish neighbours. Yet the Jewish shtetl has suddenly become alive again in the cards' frozen snapshots from the past.




Lomza:   The synagogue built in 1878-1889, designed by Henryk Marconi,
destroyed by Germans during the Second World War.
(Photo: Northern Masovia Museum, Lomza)

Lomza:   On the Market Square, about 1915.
(Photo: Northern Masovia Museum, Lomza)


* * *


Approximately one hundred years ago, a Jewish shopkeeper of Przasnysz, tried to convince the farmers from the Kurpie region in Northern Masovia that iron rims were much better than the wooden ones to use on the wheels of their heavy horse-wagons. He also introduced the steel stove with a chimney to heat their little shacks they called houses. The Jewish trader’s store was situated next to the town hall and the synagogue (now on one of the postcards). In 1939, the Germans destroyed the Beth Hamidrash adorned with a mezuzah nailed to its doorpost by Baal Shem Tov. And Joszke Moncarz, the Jewish shopkeeper, rests eternally in a Jewish cemetery in New York. Thus, the composition of the postcard showing both the synagogue in Przasnysz and the Mount Zion Cemetery in New York is not a mistake, it is symbolic.




Przasnysz:   The synagogue dating from the late 19th century,
destroyed by the Germans in 1939. (Photo 1919-1920, Historical Museum, Przasnysz)

New York:   The Przasnysz Quarters of the Mount Zion Cemetery.
(Photo: Jeff Kingley)


There were numerous Hassidic legends circulating around so that today it is hard to distinguish what was real and what was fiction. It was being told that the Friday’s Muslim houri and the Sunday’s Christian girl led the Saturday’s Shabbat bride to under the canopy to the accompaniment of the klezmer music. To hear the legends and the klezmer music from the postcards is a rather hard thing to attain, but these musical harmonies and words are alive in the memories of those who now are buried in cemeteries all over the world. One only needs to wish to listen:
as the cantor holds the last high note
the performance is over
the people smile
and my grandfather
leans over to tell me
pray putting your soul
into words not some sweet melody.

Rafi Aaron, My Grandfather and the Blues.




Nasielsk:   The synagogue dating from the late 17th century,
torn down in 1880 due to its poor condition.
(Source: Zygmunt Gloger, Budownictwo drzewne i wyroby z drzewa w dawnej Polsce, Warszawa 1907.)

Jedwabne:   The synagogue; mentioned in print in 1771, destroyed by fire in 1913.
(Source: the periodical Wies i miasteczko, 1916.)


On another postcard Chaim Kadesz gets ready to make a journey between the two towns of Kolno and Stawiski. On his coach doors the plate with the destination town can be seen. One can then find what those Hassids who did not study the Torah were doing. Chaim Kadesz, with a long beard, holds in his hand a basket, possibly for fodder.




The coachman Chaim Kadesz with his horse-drawn coach operating between the towns of Kolno and Stawiski.
(Source: the book  And I Still See Their Faces. Photographs of Polish Jews. Ed. G. Tencer, Warszawa 1998.)

Treblinka:   A fragment of the monument commemorating the 800,000 Jews killed in this Nazi death camp.
(Designed by Franciszek Duszenko i Adam Haupt, 1964.   Photo: Hank Mischkoff)


Not far from Przasnysz, there is a small town of Ostroleka, where Jewish merchants used to buy salt for farmers. There is another little town close to Przasnysz, called Myszyniec, and it is the heart of the Kurpie region. The famous honey harvest takes place in Myszyniec every year.

In August 2001, I went there with a friend of mine, Mariusz Bondarczuk. We were mesmerized by Kurpie’s folklore. People were dancing, singing, selling honey, telling stories and making it known they were a tough and proud breed. In the past, Jewish people had much admiration and respect for the people of Kurpie. We wandered around the little town hoping to find a Jewish cemetery. An elderly lady could not tell us of its whereabouts, but maybe she did not want to remember, like so many others, not only in Masovia.

Finally, we met a young man from Myszyniec who showed us the cemetery. Not even a single Jewish gravestone could be seen there. It was only when he showed us his uncle’s property with a chopped tree trunk covered with empty glasses and bottles that we were able to notice a piece of a matzevah with a citation from the Book of Jeremiah (9.1): Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people.




Myszyniec:   Remnants of a matzevah on a private property.
The fragmentary inscription from the Book of Jeremiah (9.1), chiselled in it, can still be seen.
(Photo: Mariusz Bondarczuk, 2001)

Rozan:   Remnants of a matzevah on a private property.
(Photo: Mariusz Bondarczuk, 2001)


And in my imagination, a literary pastiche revealed itself to me through the leafy clusters of a sumac shrub. Shabbat candles shone, illuminating the singing faces of young children gathered around the table:
In the land of Israel there is a mountain;
On the mountain stands a dish;
On the dish lies a fish.
And what is the name of the fish?

- Leviathan!

Irving Fineman, Hear, ye sons.


Then the children dipped their fingers in a glass of vodka and wrote with it their wishes on the wooden table. Their mother lit these wet writings with a candle. From an encrusted snuffbox, an Oriental scent spread throughout the room foreshadowing a lucky and joyous week.

On another postcard, there is an image of the synagogue in Krasnosielc, where Germans shot Jews as early as September in 1939. Allow me to interject a little story that suits the picture. Everybody in Krasnosielc knew and was proud of the Wrona ("Crow") brothers. Before the First World War the brothers emigrated to the United States. They started a cinematography business, called Warner Bros., which laid the foundation for Hollywood. The synagogue in which the little brothers once used to pray has survived many cataclysms including two horrible wars. The Krasnosielc Synagogue stands forgotten to this day. It is used as a warehouse for red fertilizer and black coal. On one of the synagogue’s exterior walls there is a plaque commemorating Jews murdered in 1939 that can be barely seen through the high weeds growing around the old building's periphery.

Very unique is the photograph of the Synagogue in Plonsk, whose ruins were torn down in 1956. David Ben Gurion was born in Plonsk, and later he became the founder of the modern state of Israel. On the same postcard, one can see David Ben Gurion's and his wife's tombstones in Sde Boker, Israel, bearing the inscription: To the Father of the Nation.




Plonsk:   The Synagogue dating from 1670, torn down in 1956.
(Photo of 1951; Artur K. F. Wolosz Collection.)

Sde Boker (Israel):   The tombstones of David Ben Gurion (1886-1973) and his wife Paula.
(Photo: Mariusz Bondarczuk)





Pultusk:   The Synagogue at Kotlarska St., dating from 1875, torn down in the 1970s.
(Photo: Adam Milobedzki, 1951; Artura K. F. Wolosz Collection.)

Steps leading to a landing port by the Narev River, built of matzevahs (matzevot) by the Germans.
In the 1980s these matzevahs were utilized to strengthen the riverbank.
(Source: Pultusk Sefer Zicaron, Tel Aviv, 1971)

The plague commemorating the Ostroleka Jews in the wall of the former Jewish community building at 16 Kotlarska St.,
placed in 1993 and vandalized shortly after.
(Photo: Edward Malinowski)


For me, the most distinctive and meaningful postcard is the one from Ostroleka from just before the First World War. Very little can be deciphered from it: a Roman Catholic church standing in the background and some Hassids walking past it, perhaps to their quarters. Could it have been among them the coachman Czaplipaj who planned to go to Eretz Israel in his coach, or could it have been Jehuda Nadborny's daughter who lead big bulls by their horns over the bridge across the Narew River? Maybe among them was the self-proclaimed doctor Fajvl Lejbl Herc who cured all his patients with sour milk and suppositories, or perhaps it was the poet Israel Sztern who remained so close to God that he relinquished his soul in Treblinka or in the Warsaw Ghetto. Lastly, could these Jews represent the "Hassidic Army Draft" of 1915 whose response to the screaming query of a tsarist policeman: "What happened to all the young Jews gathered last night?" was "They got old overnight."?




Ostroleka:   Jews against the background of a Roman Catholic church, early 20th century.
(Postcard from the Waldemar Krzyzewski Collection.)

New York:   The Ostroleka Quarters of the Mount Zion Cemetery.
(Photo: Jeff Kingsley)


There are no more Hassids in Ostroleka. Their ashes are scattered in Treblinka and Auschwitz. Their legacy is ignored. No more legends or stories circulate around today. Only these postcards and the book "The Jews of Ostroleka" link the local past and the present: The river Narew if you were only able to speak...

* * *


On the sixteen postcards of the series "The Jews of Northern Masovia" there are predominantly old views of the synagogues and streets of the following townships of the region (mostly two views per card): Biezun/Makow Mazowiecki, Ciechanow/Mlawa, Kolno/Treblinka, Lomza, Przasnysz, Makow Mazowiecki, Myszyniec, Nasielsk/Jedwabne, Ostroleka, Plonsk, Pultusk, Rozan, Stawiski/Krasnosielc, Wysokie Mazowieckie/Chorzele, Wyszkow/Ostrow Mazowiecki.

The postcards were designed and produced by Mr. Mariusz Bondarczuk of Przasnysz. He is a journalist and a dedicated historian of the Przasnysz region. This way Mariusz Bondarczuk wants to pay tribute to the Masovia Jews, those who once had lived in this land along with the Polish people.

My dear friends Mirka Wolosz and Artur F. K. Wolosz of Ciechanow did the research part of the editorial work on the card set.

We invite all those interested in Judaica and the history of Masovia as well as those who collect old postcards to contact Mariusz Bondarczuk at his e-mail address: gazprzas@hot.pl


Copy editor: Karolina Kontewicz





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