In the late the 18th century, Jews already constituted the majority of the inhabitants of Sierpc, with their share in the population fluctuating between 50% and 62%. In 1830, a “Jewish district” was officially formed in the town. It was the centre of the communal life, housing three synagogues (the largest of which was erected before 1858), six prayer houses, and a ritual bath.

Most of the Jews in Sierpc were traditionally involved in trade. They imported fabrics for women’s clothes, small accessories, spices, butter, and fish to the town. Under the Prussian Partition, Jews constituted the majority of local stallholders and craftsmen, especially tailors and bakers. They also dealt with tanning, furriery, hat making, and cloth making. The only doctor in the town was also Jewish, as were three surgeons and three barbers.

During the period of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland), the Jewish community was still the driving force of local trade. Many Jews drew considerable profits from the sale of acohol, running 33 public houses in Sierpc (as of 1844). In the early 19th century, Jewish merchants from Sierpc mainly traded in cloth, cereals, and horses. They also ran transportation services, taking merchants and goods to Warsaw, Płock, and other larger cities on horse-drawn carts. At the beginning of 1844, they launched an omnibus service from Sierpc to Płock. The business became a significant part of the local economy. It even managed to retain its importance after the construction of the Vistula Railway, with Jewish coachmen transporting passengers and goods to the nearest railway station. In the years 1865–1914, providing supplies for Russian troops stationed in Sierpc became a significant source of income for many local Jews.

The early 20th century brought an economic downturn and increased competition to Sierpc. In 1912, the National Democrats called for a boycott of Jewish shops. Small Jewish merchants were seeking to protect their interests by setting up joint companies with greater capital. The Loan and Savings Cooperative of Sierpc (Polish: Sierpska Pożyczkowo-Oszczędnościowa Spółdzielnia) was active in the town in the interwar period. In 1922, as many as 57 out of all 70 registered companies in Sierpc belonged to Jews (trade in cereals, wood, dairy products, haberdashery, building materials). This state of affairs bred discontent among Christian entrepreneurs, and the Municipal Council made efforts to change market days from Tuesday and Friday to Tuesday and Saturday. The exacerbating Polish-Jewish conflict in Sierpc  was becoming more and more visible, especially after the anti-Semitic incidents which took place in the town in 1935 and 1939.

In reborn Poland, the share of Jews in the overall population of Sierpc was systematically decreasing: from 43% in 1921 to less than 30% in the 1930s. The interwar period marked increased political activity among the local population. The Zionists boasted the greatest number of supporters (Mizrachi, left-wing Poale Zion, Zionist Organisation in Poland) alongside the socialist Bund and the conservative Agudath. In the 19th and the 20th century, Jewish children and youth could attend several different schools. There were 13 chadarim in the town, as well as the two-grade Blina Ajerbach Jewish Female School, religious and public schools, and two yeshivot. Sierpc also had a branch of the Maccabi sports club.

The history of the 4,000-strong Jewish community of Sierpc came to an end during World War II. Some of the local Jewish inhabitants fled the town in early September 1939, before it was invaded by the German army. Towards the end of the month, the occupier set fire to the largest synagogue in the town. Mass deportations of the Jewish population began in November, after Sierpc was incorporated into the Reich. The first rail transport was sent to Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki via Pomiechówek. Only a group of ca. 500 Jews, mainly craftsmen, was left in Sierpc. In the spring of 1940, they were moved to a ghetto covering the streets Browarna, Górna, and Kilińskiego. The local Judenrat (Jewish Council) was held in relatively high esteem by the ghetto inhabitants. The Germans organised subsequent deportations in 1940, sending groups of Jews to localities in the General Government, such as Góra Kalwaria, Sokołów Podlaski, Łomaz, and Warsaw. The liquidation of the ghetto in Sierpc began at the turn of December 1941 and lasted until early January of the following year. The prisoners were deported to the Nazi death camps in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Most of the wooden buildings in the Jewish quarter were destroyed during the occupation. Only a handful of Jews returned to Sierpc after the end of war. A branch of the Central Committee of Polish Jews was established in the town. Most of the 19 people who registered with it left Poland in the following years.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Sierpc was first mentioned in historical sources in 1775. It was established ca. 1.5 kilometres south-east of the town centre, on the western side of today’s Władysława Jagiełły Street which runs along the Sierpienica River. Its area is surrounded with two fences – “outer” and “inner”; it currently covers an area of 2.3 hectares. During World War II, the cemetery was destroyed by the Germans, who tore out matzevot and used them as curbs and paving stones.

In 1947, a monument commemorating the Jews of Sierpc who perished in the Holocaust was erected at the cemetery. In the years 1970–1972, recovered fragments of matzevot were placed around the monument and the area was surrounded with a wire mesh fence. The cemetery had been out of use since the end of the war, but it was formally closed by the decision of the administrative authorities in 1964. Today, the 0.2-hectare area of the so-called lapidarium (within the boundaries of the “inner” fence) holds about 170 fragments of tombstones, the oldest of which dates back to 1850. The matzevot from the Sierpc cemetery are in a poor condition – none has survived in its entirety and only some twenty have features which allow for their more precise identification.

In 1998–1999, Rabbi Eliakin Schlesinger – descendant of a tzaddik from Sierpc – financed the construction of a fence around the necropolis and cleaning works on the site. The cemetery was then symbolically rededicated. A wooden pre-burial house from 1928 and the gravedigger’s residential quarters stood on the cemetery grounds until the early 21st century. The necropolis was cleaned up again in 2009.

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.