What remains of the Jewish cemetery at Węgrów, Poland

[00:00:01]Hello and welcome. Today I'm in a town called Węgrów, 65 km approximately east northeast of Warsaw. And it's a very attractive place to visit. This, however, is the industrial area. It's quite a small industrial area cuz the town's not all that large, but it's really very, very attractive and well off the beaten track. Uh this town had a Jewish population around 20%. Although by the beginning of World War II, uh that uh uh percentage uh became close to the 50%. Indeed, by the time of a census that was uh um carried out in 1940, there were far more Jews than non-Jews living here. This is what is left of the Jewish cemetery here. Uh you can see that word very clearly written down there, "Nie zabijaj." Don't kill. And the sign says, "In memory of the Jews of Węgrów uh murdered by the Nazis in 1939 to 1944."

[00:01:13]Cuz in 1944, it was uh occupied by the Soviet Union. Uh there's a sign here and um whereas I could possibly do a better job of the translation if I were writing it down, I'll read it from the English um and translate it from the Polish. The reason for this being it'll possibly be a little bit quicker. Uh the Jewish cemetery probably already existed in the 17th century. Before World War II, it occupied a large area. Uh among the gravestones, fieldstones, were inscriptions that were of high class and of polychrome carved gravestones. The tomb of the rabbi was protected by a small grave. Also, the Jews of Warsaw benefit from the cemetery in Węgrów to the founding of the Jewish cemetery in Bródno in 1718. Certainly the cemetery in Bródno definitely worth visiting. It's absolutely enormous and it's it's another thing it is off beaten track cuz people normally go the cemetery which is quite close to the center of Warsaw. Anyway, continuing.

[00:02:18]During World War the Germans carried out mass murder executing on the cemetery the Jewish population. In 1943 liquidated of mass graves of the murdered corpses and happened and they were burned in an area called Little Treblinka in the sand.

[00:02:34]The monument, the lapidary, located on Berka Joselewicza Street was was paid for by the city of Węgrów and constructed in 1982. It was designed by Wiesław Wierzejski and it was made by the stonemason Kazimierz Pabian consists of tombstone destroyed in the 90s.

[00:02:53]It consists of tombstone that had been destroyed. I hate to suggest they were destroyed in the 1960s.

[00:03:02]Sorry, that's in Polish as well. It's destroyed in the 1960s. The cemetery in central part of stylized tablets with inscription of the 10 Commandments in Polish and Hebrew and this is down here.

[00:03:12]I can't actually see the 10 Commandments from here but maybe you can cuz I've noticed occasionally when I film things it's visible in the camera but not to the naked eye. I still can't see them.

[00:03:22]Anyway, I'm sure they are there and um So, now the Jews of Węgrów were taken to Treblinka in September of 1942.

[00:03:42]This get the ghetto here was very large and sorry, the population is very large.

[00:03:47]The ghetto itself was very small.

[00:03:49]And Uh, but they failed to actually capture all the Jews. It was an open ghetto. That meant to say that there were people who, uh, were able to get out. Um, even those, uh, there were escapes during the, uh, round up. Most ghettos, in fact, were open. Although this one was particularly large.

[00:04:11]Uh, so the population was particularly large for an open ghetto. Um, a, uh, what was called a rest ghetto, a, um, trying to think of the right word in English here. Uh, a a new ghetto as, um, a supplementary ghetto was made at the, uh, bottom of the town square, along what is the Wita Gdanska. And, uh, that was for Jews who were in hiding. There's accounts which I've read, people actually went into that ghetto because thinking that they might be safe or have temporary safety. But that was in April 1943, the Jewish people living there were rounded up and murdered. It mentions here the destruction of the bodies. Now, we know that people were shot here.

[00:05:00]And, uh, it was like Sonder um, Sonderaktion Sonderkommando 1005.

[00:05:06]The bodies were dug up and they were burnt.

[00:05:12]I had somebody in the comments yesterday writing that it's impossible to burn bodies. It would It would have taken all the trees up in Europe.

[00:05:19]Uh, I'm sort of, uh, lost with, uh, words to describe how stupid that comment is, but I'll have to, uh, Oh, no, sorry, I thought it was something written there, but that's the rear end. Um, Vengrov really is a supremely attractive place. Now, with the exception of, uh, one or two of the houses in the old town square, the the house of the former rabbi who was murdered, um, 23rd of September 1939 in in the main square by being he was stabbed with a bayonet and he died of his wounds.

[00:05:56]And other than that there's very little that remains of former Jewish Węgrów.

[00:06:06]Anyway, I'll do other videos on this subject. I wanted to show you this the cemetery or the former cemetery to the Jews of Węgrów which you can see here.

[00:06:16]For now, thanks for watching. Bye for now.