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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 $56.00

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