A record from 1382 mentions a fire in the synagogue, which indirectly suggests that a Jewish community already existed in the town at that point. This would make it one of the oldest kehillot in the erstwhile Kalisz Province (Kalisz 1287, Pyzdry 1387, Konin 1397, Koło 1429, Koźmin 1433, Żnin 1449, Łęczyca 1453, Kłodawa 1479, Gniezno 1458, Stawiszyn 1461).

Some records in archival sources, though impossible to verify, suggest even earlier beginning of Jewish settlement. Rabbi Abraham Abbusch Wreschner (1796–1876, the thirty-seventh rabbi of the community who held the post from 1828 to 1873) informed the erstwhile parish priest Maksymilian W. Łukaszewicz that the Jewish cemetery held overturned tombstones, partially covered with soil, which dated back to the year 5029, that is 1269. If we were to give credence to this information, we would need to conclude that Jews arrived in Żerków as early as the mid-13th century.

Problematic as it is to determine the exact chronology of Jewish settlement, it is much easier to indicate the exact location of the centre of Jewish life in Żerków. The homesteads of the first Jews in the town were situated between the Żerków settlement and the Ostrów stronghold. The town was destroyed in a fire in 1382 and rebuilt under the charter issued in 1386. Its original boundaries were altered, but the location of the Jewish district did not change. It was situated outside the tollgates and only with time came to be part of Żerków itself. The restrictions on Jewish settlement were eventually lifted during the Prussian rule (during the Old Polish era, Jews in Żerków were not allowed to live outside the Jewish district), but the remnants of the quarter remained in the form of the name of one of the streets. In the 19th century, the town’s grid consisted of eight streets, six crossways (one of them was Żydowska [Jewish] Street) and Przedmieście (Suburbs).

The Jewish population was growing in size, but no statistical data has been preserved from the late Middle Ages or the early modern period. In 1674, there were only six Jews living in the town (they constituted 3.3% of its total population). In the subsequent decades, their number gradually increased, especially during the Prussian rule from the end of the 18th century to the mid-19th century. Only the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century brought a demographic decline. In 1793, Jews constituted a community of 105 people (30.1% of the total population), in 1829 – 232 (12.7%), in 1845 – 433 (30.5%). According to the available data, the community was the largest in 1849 – 491 Jews. In 1857, there were 336 Jewish residents in Żerków (66 families), in 1880 – 282, in 1895 – 171 (9.6%), in 1905 – 192, and in 1913 – only 69.

After the aforementioned fire of the synagogue in 1382, a new synagogue was built on the ruins with the consent of King Władysław II Jagiełło. It was a spacious building made of larch wood, located at today's Jarocińska Street. Probably renovated and remodelled many times, it survived for several centuries, until 13–16 August 1861, when it was destroyed in a fire of the town along with all its furnishing. It was replaced by a brick building erected in the years 1863–1864. Its exterior and interior has been immortalised on a commemorative postcard issued by the local Jewish community on the centenary of the existence of the local Chevra Kadisha.

The community infrastructure included the building of a religious school for boys (cheder) which had supposedly existed since the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, it operated as a public religious school financed by the local Jewish community and was located at Jarocińska Street. One teacher was employed, although it seems that in the peak of attendance, there were two teachers (Löwenthal from 1840, Hermann Kallman d. 1887, Abraham Abramowitz). In 1848, 19 students attended the school, in 1893 – 36, in 1905 – 11. The school was closed soon after 1905. For many years, the activities of the institution were controlled by a school inspector from Jarocin, Rabbi Bloch.

The Jews of Żerków were traditionally engaged in trade and crafts. Only a handful lived in the rural areas around the town, where they earned their living as innkeepers, toll collectors, leaseholders, producers and sellers of alcoholic beverages, and lessees of custom duties. In the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and during the Prussian rule, Jewish merchants and carters from Żerków frequented fairs and markets in Greater Poland and Silesia (e.g. Śrem, Poznań, Wrocław), and some maintained trade relations with Leipzig, Bremen, and Hamburg. Over time, the Jews of Żerków almost monopolised local trade in grain, cattle, horses, coal and wood tar, spices, wood, cloth, silk, wine, vodka, beer, glass, porcelain, and the so-called blacksmith coal (probably coking coal). Żerków’s Jewish craftsmen were mainly involved in baking, glazing, cap making, tailoring, tanning as well as belt- and ropemaking. This state of affairs remained largely unchained in the 18th and 19th centuries, only the proportions between the professions differed. This is evidenced by data on employment structure in Żerków at the end of the 19th century (only listing the industries in which Jews were active): among the 11 butchers in the town there were three Jews (27.3% of the professional group), among nine bakers – two Jews (22.2%), among seven tailors – three Jews (42.9%), among three carters and fiacre drivers – two Jews (66.7%), among six innkeepers – three Jews (50%), among 10 publicans – three Jews (30%). Two Jewish glaziers and one cap maker did not have any competition in the town.

With the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century, the intercultural relations in the town started to undergo changes. The Prussian state strove to quickly Germanise the local Polish and Jewish population and strengthen the so-called “German spirit.” Their efforts gradually began to bring the expected results, especially in the case of the Jewish population, whose representatives would gradually adopt the German language and assimilate into the culture. In the 19th century, operational knowledge of Polish began to wane and was replaced by German. However, Jews continued to use Polish for practical reasons, if only due to the fact that despite the intensified Germanisation efforts, the Polish population of Greater Poland mostly preserved its identity and skilfully nurtured its own culture and language. Similarly, the local Jews, though Germanised, upheld their attachment to the Ashkenazi tradition for many decades. In 1842, only 4.8% of the Jewish population living in Żerków, Borek Wielkopolski, and Śrem obtained naturalisation patents. Among the 75 towns for which data is available, a lower percentage was noted only in Oborniki (4.3%) and Książ Wielkopolski (4.6%).

The attachment of local Jews to the Orthodox tradition was evidenced by the establishment of the Beth HaMidrash Association (Beith ha-midrash Verein) in 1834. It existed until World War I. Until 1889, the minutes of the association meetings were written in Hebrew. The supporters of radical traditionalism had earlier formed part of the Ner Tamid (later Ner Tamid Verein) religious brotherhood (chevra) existing since 1748, the Chevra Kadisha burial society (est. 1813, later Chevra Kadisha Verein) and the tailors' brotherhood, later renamed to the Tailors’ and Hat Makers’ Society (Schreiber und Mützenmacher Verein).

In the 1830s–1840s, sermons began to be delivered in German, but this would only take place a few times a year, and the invited rabbis or preachers were initially unwelcome. With time, however, the use of the German language became the norm, both in everyday life and in the activities of the Jewish community. The people most susceptible to Germanisation were the representatives of the financial elites and the supporters of the Haskalah striving to acquire secular education. Among them was Heinrich Graetz from Książ Wielkopolski. As a self-taught person, he was broadening his knowledge in Żerków in the 1830s, browsing the sparse collections of the local German library. Żerków was the hometown of several renowned Jewish figures who went down in the history of German science and art, including Julius Fürst, Henri (Heimann) Heppner, Doctor Abraham Adamkiewicz, and Jacob Steinhardt. Among the most prominent residents of the town there were also deputies to the municipal authorities, for example Isidor Ludwig, Carl Steinhardt, E. Schulz, Joachimczyk, and people active in the community administration: board members (H. Preuß, S. Posener, Louis Brinn, Beiser, Leon Schrener, Hermann Scheps) and representatives (Ludwig, S. Posener, J. Hermann, S. Brinn, E. Schulz, J. Ehrlich).

After World War I, almost all local Jews left the town. In the census of 30 September 1921, not even one resident of Żerków declared the Jewish faith. Individual Jewish people or families probably identified as Germans (14 people in total). In the following years, a small number of Jewish newcomers appeared in the town, mainly merchants. In the spring of 1934, they became the target of attacks perpetrated by young nationalists.

Despite the meagre size of the Jewish community, it was not dissolved or liquidated in the interwar period, as was the case in many other towns in Greater Poland. Following changes in the territorial division of Jewish communities in Poznańskie and Pomorskie Province in 1932, the Jewish community in Żerków – together with twelve others from the districts of Środa Śląska, Września, Jarocin, and Śrem – was incorporated into the Jewish community in Środa Wielkopolska. We know of one of its members – Efraim (?) Fabian, arrested by the Germans in October 1939, supposedly a representative of a Jewish family who had lived in Żerków for generations.

The Description

The Żerków community had its own cemetery, which was probably established in the 13th or 14th century on land granted to the Jews by the king. It was located on the northern side of the Ostrów forest. The cemetery survived until the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century, it was located ca. 0.5 km away from the Evangelical cemetery, close to a private forest near the so-called parish pond, behind Miłosławska Street. The cemetery was not fenced and, as its contemporaries described it, “it was full of stone monuments.” Its location is confirmed by a map from the 1930s. A forest road led to the necropolis from the Evangelical cemetery. The outline of the Jewish cemetery or the area where it was located resembles a polygon composed of a rectangle and an adjoined square. The site was destroyed by the Germans in 1940, and the tombstones were used as building material for the construction of the road to Bieździaków. Nowadays, the area is the property of the State Treasury and is managed by the State Forests Directorate.

Prepared by Tomasz Kawski, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN

Bibliography

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