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Zamosc
Zamość [Yiddish: Zamoshch, Zamoch] - A town in the Lublin voivodship, founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski on the trade route linking Lwów and Volhynia with Lublin and Warsaw. From the late sixteenth century, Zamość was the main regional center and the seat of local government. Zamość soon became a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural town. In 1585, Zamoyski brought Armenians to Zamość, followed in 1588 by Sephardic Jews from Lwów who had originally come from Italy and Turkey; in 1589, Zamoyski brought Greeks from Kaffa. The Jews were granted a privilege according them the same rights as other residents. In addition to being able to own property anywhere in the town, their safety and complete religious freedom were guaranteed. They were granted the right to build synagogues, mikvahs (ritual baths) and cemeteries, and to found schools. They were even allowed to carry weapons.
City Hall, photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
In 1992 UNESCO declared the historical monuments of Zamosc a World Heritage Site.
In 1602, Zamość already had a "Jewish Street", and by 1603, a synagogue had been built; the Community also had its own rabbi. In 1657, of 222 buildings in Zamość, nineteen were owned by Jews; by 1691, this number had grown to 36. In the sixteenth century, there were also Ashkenazim living in Zamość; for the most part, they rented mills and the right to collect tolls. Their numbers grew during the seventeenth century, until they eventually absorbed the Sephardic Community. This situation changed the legal status of the Jews of Zamość, since the Sephardic Jews had not been under the jurisdiction of either the Polish authorities nor the Jewish Sejm. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when Zamość was under Austrian rule, it became a center for the Jewish Enlightenment. After the Congress of Vienna, it was part of the Kingdom of Poland. Beginning in 1821, Zamość was owned by the government. These changes did not limit Jewish social and cultural life. J.Cederbaum and J.Eichenbaum were both active here, as was the author of Enlightenment comedies, S. Ettinger. The great Yiddish writer I.L.Peretz was born in Zamość, as was the political and German social-democratic activist, Rosa Luxemburg.
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In 1822, approximately 2,500 Jews lived in Zamość (55% of the total population); by 1890, this figure had grown to 5,700 (approximately 62%). They were primarily engaged in trade and supplying the military barracks in Zamość. Jews owned almost all of the town's shops. During the interwar period, though the town fell to the rank of a provincial center, there were nevertheless still several Jewish publications, and political and social organizations continued to be active. In 1939, there were approximately 12,000 Jews living in Zamość (60% of the town's population).
The Synagogue, photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
When the Second World War began, many of them escaped to the Soviet zone of occupation. In October 1939, the Nazis created a Judenrat; in the spring of 1941, they concentrated the Jewish population in a designated part of the town. In April 1942, they created a ghetto in that area, in which Jews from the surrounding localities were crowded, as well as those who had been deported from areas annexed to the Reich, and from Germany and the Czech lands - 9,000 people in all. In the spring and autumn of 1943, most of them were deported to the death camp in Bełżec.
The Main Square in Zamosc, photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
Some of Zamość's former Jewish quarter still survives today, including its Renaissance synagogue built in 1620 (which currently houses a library). Next to it is the kahal, dating back to the seventeenth century, where the school used to be located as well; it is currently used as a hotel. The building of the ritual baths (mikvah) has also survived, as well as a nineteenth-century synagogue and several seventeenth century buildings constructed by Jewish merchants. H.W.
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