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History of the Jews of Schneidemühl: 1641 to the Holocaust  by Peter Simonstein Cullman Peter Cullman spent fifteen years compiling a history of Schneidemühl (today Piła, Poland). The result is a portrayal not only of the Jewish minority, but also the community in which it resided. The book begins by describing the slow growth of this tiny Polish town and the arrival of Jews in the 16th century. The reader is provided a detailed account of the synagogues, the arrival of rabbis, and the changing nature of this community against a background of major European historical events.   As a result of his painstaking research, the author was able to trace the fate of most members of the Jewish community as it existed in the 1930s, many of whom could emigrate in time and others who ultimately perished in the Holocaust. What is unusual in the book are the detailed person-by-person chronologies of many as they were deported, sent to various towns, labor camps and hospices, and their ultimate fate. An annotated Jewish burial register, 1854-1940, lists the names of more than nine-hundred persons. Today, nothing remains of Jewish Schneidemühl, but the book brings to life what once was a small but vibrant and notable Jewish community. 7" x 10" 400 pp. hardcover $46.00 Contents FOREWORD IX PREFACE X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XI PART ONE INTRODUCTION 3 1 Polish – Jewish Symbiosis (950 – 1500) 3 Va’ad (1581 – 1764) 6 PART TWO PYŁA-SNYDEMÖLE: FIRST 200 YEARS 9 2 Transition from Village to Town 12 3 Pyła’s Jewish Beginnings (1540 – 1623) 15 Pyła’s First Synagogue 15 Pyła’s Rebirth 16 Pyła’s Ghetto 18 Language in the Ghetto 20 Pyła’s Rabbinate 20 First Rabbi 21 Rabbi Mose 25 Rabbi SAK 25 Rabbi Jehuda Löb 26 Rabbi Broda 26 Rabbi Wolf 27 Rabbi Sak 28 Rabbi Broda 29 PART THREE PRUSSIAN CONQUEST 31 4 Friedrich II 33 5 Schneidemühl (1772–1945) 36 Statistics 38 Fire of 1781 39 6 Life Under Prussian Rule 41 Politicization of Education 41 Schutzbrief 42 Prussian Bureaucracy 43 Economic Progress 44 Rabbi Kalischer 45 PART FOUR NINETEENTH CENTURY 47 7 Haskalah 49 8 Emancipation 51 Call to Arms 52 9 TIDES OF CHANGE 54 Rabbi Scheier 54 10 NATURALIZATIONS OF THE 1830s 58 11 LAST GREAT FIRE 61 12 NEW SYNAGOGUE 64 Locale 64 Architect 65 Exterior 66 Interior 68 Bimah and Holy Ark 69 Inauguration 70 13 RELIGIOUS TRANSITION 73 Freedom to Choose 73 Austritt and Eingliederung 74 14 EXODUS AND THE EXPERIENCE OF 1848 76 Early Emigrants 76 Revolution 79 15 INDUSTRIALIZATION AND SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT 81 16 RABBI SCHEIER’S DILEMMA 84 17 A NEW EPOCH 87 Rabbi Brann 87 18 THE CEMETERY 89 Matzevot 91 Burial Records 92 19 Tzedakah 94 Charity and Welfare 94 Education Revisited 96 20 Anti-Semitism 98 Names and Stigma 100 21 Social Life: Status 103 22 Schneidemühl’s Jewish Heart 106 Chazzanim 110 Rabbi Grzymisch 111 Rabbi Lewkowitz 112 PART FIVE: FACING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 115 23 The Great War and Its Aftermath 117 Schneidemühl’s Role 117 Schneidemühl’s Jewish Patriots 118 Rabbi Nobel 120 Organ and Harmonium 122 24 Weimar Republic 125 Attitudes 126 Stirrings of the Right 127 Optanten 128 Rabbi Rosenzweig 130 PART SIX: TURMOIL, PERSECUTION, DESTRUCTION 133 25 Schneidemühl Under the Swastika 135 Chicanery 136 Rabbi Jospe 138 Rabbi Plotke: The Kehillah’s Last Rabbi 139 Kristallnacht 141 Cemetery’s Desecration and Obliteration 146 26 Emigrants 151 Flight to the Orient 153 27 Untergang 157 The Facts 158 Motives 160 Timetable 162 Odyssey of Despair 163 Transit Camp Główna 167 Confiscation 170 Last Head of the Kehillah 171 28 Aftermath 174 1945—Military Annihilation 174 Polish Piła Reborn 176 29 Reminiscences 178 Piła Today 179 30 Z’Chor — Remember 180 Dispersion 248 Known Holocaust Survivors 265 EPILOGUE 268 PICTURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 269 APPENDICES 297 A. Calendarium 299 B. Rabbi Israel Nobel’s Eulogies 302 C. Burials in Schneidemühl and Neighboring Towns 303 D. Epitaphs in the Jewish Cemetery of Schneidemühl 313 E. Burial Records of the Jewish Cemetery of Schneidemühl 315 F. Census of Schneidemühl in 1774 348 G. The 1939 Census in Schneidemühl 349 H. Rabbis of the Kehillah of Pyła-Schneidemühl — 1641–1938 362 I. Schneidemühl’s Street Names — Then and Now. 363 BIBLIOGRAPHY 364 GLOSSARY 369 INDEX 377