Memorial Book of the Community of Mak��w-Mazowiecki

<p>In the northeast of Mazovia once Greater-Poland the town of Makow-Mazowiecki county seat of Powiat is set on the banks of the Orzysz river.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A Jewish community was established in Mak��w in the middle of the 16</span><sup style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>th</sup><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> century and was subordinate to the kehilla in Ciechan��w. The community owned a ritual bath a synagogue and an old people's house as well as a cemetery. In 1753 the Jewish community of Mak��w became independent.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In the 19</span><sup style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>th</sup><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> century Mak��w Jews began to establish small industrial enterprises such as weaving plants tanneries and mills. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>At the end of the 19</span><sup style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>th</sup><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> century and in the early 20</span><sup style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>th</sup><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> century supporters of Zionism and left-wing ideology emerged from the Jewish population of the town. The first branches of the Lovers of Zion and the Mizrachi Zionist Orthodox Organization were established at the time. The future leader of the Zionist movement Nachum Soko����w moved to Mak��w in 1876. In 1930 a district convention of the Zionist Organization was held in Mak��w.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Just as many other Jewish communities Mak��w boasted an active branch of the Linat Hatsedek Keren Kayemet Le'Israel libraries Talmud Torah Mikvah Tarbut Jewish Cultural and Educational center and more. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The wave of anti-Semitism sweeping Poland in the 1930s soon reached Mak��w where Jewish shops were boycotted shop windows broken and owners harassed. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Germans seized the town in September 1939. They established a ghetto and forced labor camps. The surviving Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.</span></p><p>As the editor of the book writes: It seemed to me I walked alongside the youth of Mak��w in the pine-forest reflected in the waters of the Ozycz attended their assemblies marched with the children through the Makover streets on the days of Lag B'Omer celebrations participated in the Zionist manifestations flower-day bazaars. I was in awe of the devoted Jewish members of philanthropic institutions and its members who worked with devotion for a common goal without seeking personal reward....I became acquainted with the history of Mak��w since the 16th century with her Torah scholars Rabbis and Gaonim educated ones yeshivahs teachers tutors writers and poets.</p><p>May this book serve a memorial to the Jewish community of Makow Mazowiecki that was so brutally destroyed. </p>