Located at 53º01'N/23º54'E, 33 miles East of Białystok
Common spellings: Yalovka, Yaluvka
Correct Polish pronunciation: ya-WOOV-ka
| Year | General Population | Jewish Population |
| 1878 |
1,091 |
668 |
| 1897 |
1,311 |
743 |
| 1921 |
1,211 |
588 |
Jałówka
is situated in a
densely forested area on an old trade route from Minsk to Warsaw, 54 km
from the regional seat of Białystok, and through which flows the
Jałówka River. The town was founded at the beginning of the
16th century by Queen Bona, wife of King Zygmunt I, and in 1548 was
granted its city charter by King Zygmunt August. In 1795, it was
annexed to Prussia and in 1807 was incorporated into the Russian
Empire. Jałówka was not connected to the railway network,
and its economy remained characteristically rural: its residents earned
their livelihoods from agriculture, light commerce and from
workmanship. After WWI, Jałówka was included in independent
Poland, and with the outbreak of WWII (September 1939) came under
Soviet control. At the end of July 1941, it was conquered by the Nazis,
and after three years was liberated by the Soviet Army.
The first Jews settled in Jałówka at the end of the 18th
century. In 1870, the community consisted of 400 people. Their sources
of livelihood were light commerce, and various
skills—principally carpentry and
tailoring—yet there were among them also bakers,
butchers, coopers (barrel makers) and many wagoners
(Jałówka's form of transportation and hauling
from which wagons were harnessed to horses). The Jews lived in the area
of the market and maintained stores and stands there. Aside from their
homes, they kept small animal pens and vegetable patches for their own
use; sometimes a cow, goat, or a horse. At the end of the 19th century,
the number of Jews approached its peak—approximately 750
people (56.7% of the general population)—but from then on
the number decreased as a result of emigration and departure for the
large cities.
In the first years, there was no independent Jewish community in
Jałówka, and the Jews belonged to the community of Svisloch
(6 miles east,: now in Belarus). In the first half of the 19th century,
with the growth of their number, they established a kehillah
(Jewish community); sanctified a cemetery outside of town; and built a
wooden synagogue, with a Talmud Torah (religious
study for children) class and beit midrash
(religious study for adults). In the synagogue the well-to-do prayed,
and the beit midrash t even served the craftsmen
and simple folks. Aside from a hevra kaddisha
(burial society), charity and assistance groups, such as Hachnasat
Orchim (Welcoming Strangers), Hachnasat Kala
(Welcoming the Bride) and others were also active in
Jałówka. The head of the kehillah at the
beginning of the 19th century was Rabbi Meir; and from among the
rabbis, known to us, which succeeded him are Rabbi Eliyahu Tzvi
Horwitz; Rabbi Yitzhak Danzig; Rabbi Ya'acov Meir Halperin, who moved
on to Woronów; and from 1904, Rabbi Ya'acov Tzvi Podorowsky
(died in 1931).
In
WWI, Jałówka was conquered by the Germans. During their
three years of rule (1915–18), the town was in a state of
distress, shortages and hunger. Open commerce was prohibited and food
was distributed in starvation rations to the populace. Many were
drafted into forced labor. The Jews received little assistance from
their relatives in countries across the sea or from the American Joint
[Distribution Committee], and only thanks to their own vegetable
gardens were they saved from outright starvation. The Germans opened
schools—in German—in the town in which all
the town's children were obligated to study. Jewish students were
allotted a few weekly hours for religious and Hebrew studies. In time,
along with the economic restrictions, the Germans carried out certain
liberalizations and allowed a public life and even [political] party
activity. In the heat of WWI, the Jews elected a new community
committee, in free democratic elections.
In the years of the War, many Jews escaped to Russia, emigrated to
other countries or to large cities; and not all returned to the town at
the end of the War. In the 1921 census, the first after the War, 588
Jews were counted, and their ratio to the general population decreased
to slightly less than half. In the period of independent Poland, the
Jews of Jałówka carried on their traditional
skills—commerce and skilled craftsmanship. Market day
served as the focus for economic activity in the town. Zionist activism
was found in Jałówka in those years, and branches of several
parties and youth groups sprung up. On the eve of the 11th Zionist
Congress (1931) there were, in Jałówka, 39 voting delegates.
The non-Zionist Bund was active in the town, as well. The private cheders
(religious schools) and Talmud Torah were re-opened after the War, and
according to the Polish Education Law, Polish language courses, math
and other general subjects were added. Girls studied in the
town's Polish elementary school. Subsequently, a Yiddish
elementary school was opened, belonging to the Zisha network. In 1931,
Rabbi Ya'acov Tzvi Podorowsky died, and the title passed to his son,
Rabbi Yitzhak Podorowsky.
On
the eve of WWII, young Jews as well were drafted into the Polish Army.
In September 1939, the Red Army entered Jałówka and a Soviet
regime was instituted. Private stores were closed or nationalized, and
in their place government cooperative stores were opened. Merchants and
shopkeepers who had been forced from their professions were employed,
in their distress, in the cooperative stores and the rest were moved
into new jobs. Craftsmen organized guilds ("ertels"), per their craft,
and young people were even appointed to clerical jobs in the Communist
administration and party. Local education underwent Sovietization, and
the youth left for high school or technical studies outside of
Jałówka. Some young Jews studied at the Teachers Seminary.
Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied territories and Western Poland
flooded Jałówka in the first weeks of the War. Some stayed
in the town, but most were sent to work in the hinterland of the Soviet
Union.
At the end of June 1941, Jałówka was conquered by the
Germans. A few Jews managed to escape to the Soviet Union, trailing the
Red Army soldiers and government administrators. A slew of edicts were
imposed on the Jews: the obligation to wear the yellow star,
prohibition to walk on the sidewalk, a ban on contacts with non-Jews
and recruitment for forced labor. The Jews were used in harsh labor and
suffered from hunger and shortages. The Germans confiscated wagons,
horses, farm animals and other property from the Jews, and imposed upon
them ransom payments which turned them destitute.
In the
Fall of 1942,
600 Jews were left in Jałówka. On
November 2, 1942, SS men, German gendarmes and Ukrainian policemen
encircled the town and concentrated the Jews in the market square. Many
tried to hide or to escape but almost all of them were discovered and
shot. Wagoners from neighboring villages transported the Jews to
abandoned Kasrektin near Volkovysk in which Jews from the whole
province were concentrated prior to being sent to the death camps.
After the departure of the convoy, the Germans and their helpers
renewed the hunt for those hiding and shot them in the place in which
they were found. In the transit camp, the Jews were housed in stables
and moldy trenches, in cramped, cold and damp conditions. The daily
food allotment included 100 grams of stale bread and soup, made from
rotten beets (intended for animal feed). Mortality from hunger and
disease was high, principally among the children. On December 2, 1942
the residents of the camp were sent to Treblinka and killed in the gas
chambers. A few young people remained in the camp to sort and place in
storage the belongings of those deported. A young man from
Jałówka survived through the end of the War and served as
witness to the consequences of the members of the community. After the
expulsion, Jałówka was declared to be Judenrein
(free of Jews). The beit midrash was dismantled and
transferred piece by piece to Dublany (approx. 2 miles north), where it
was reconstructed and served as a warehouse. The synagogue of
Jałówka was burned down by the Germans in the summer of
1944,
prior to their withdrawal.
[Translated by David Gordon from Pinkas
HaKehillot,
Poland, Volume 8, published by Yad Vashem and used with their
permission.]
Additional
Information about Jałówka
The 850 Jews deported to the Volkovysk camp by the Nazis, and a month later to Treblinka, appears on the list of deportations from the Jałówka district, not just the town. Read a first-person account of the fate of the Jews of Jalowka. [Contributed by David Gordon]
The Jałówka Township (gmina) included three small local villages: Leonowicze, Podozierany and Wiejki. Source: 1929 Polish Business Directory (http://data.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/1929/loadtop.htm?0127). [Contributed by David Gordon]
There were two cemeteries in Jałówka.The first was in the center of the village, north of the market square. It was established in the 1800s with the last burial in 1800s. It no longer exists. The second is located in a rural area on a hillside at a fork in the roads that lead to Kondratki and Gonczary. It was established in the 1800s with the last burial in 1941. Most of the cemetery is gone due to devastation during WWII and post-war agricultural use. Only a handful of gravestones remain. [Contributed by Gary Mokotoff]
Additional pictures of Jalowka can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/DavidSGordonphotos/JALOWKA#
This page dedicated to the memory of my great-grandfather, Shlomo Grodinsky a.k.a. Sam Gordon and his family. [David Gordon]