Welcome to the
memorial website dedicated
to
the
history of the former
Jewish community
of
Schneidemühl /
Pila (Poland)
The following
pages are in
memory of this Jewish community
that existed for 300 years in the heart of Wielkopolska,
Great
Poland,
where
the culture of Ashkenaz
had
flourished for centuries,
the area that later became the Prussian province of Posen.
We remember the men,
women
and children of the community
who became ensnared in the
Holocaust
and did not survive.
Z'Chor - זכור —
their names
are
not
forgotten.
(Photo courtesy František Bányai, Prague)
This
was the venerable old synagogue of Schneidemühl, consecrated on 15
October 1841
when Rabbi Plessner added these words:
“May this house serve also as a monument
to the unforgettable man and father of our country,
the late King Friedrich Wilhelm
III.”
During the pogrom
night
of
9/10
November
1938, (an event the Nazis flippantly called
'Kristallnacht,')
this House of God—a government-protected monument in the center of
Wilhelmsplatz,—
was desecrated, burned and destroyed by notorious Nazi
elements
of
Schneidemühl.
Five
hundred years ago this town was known to Polish-speaking people by
such names as Pyła or Piła. The early Low German-speaking settlers called
their town Snyde-Mole,
Schnyde-Möhle, or Schneyde-Mühle.
*
Schneidemühl was the German name that was given to the Polish
town of Piła by the Prussians in 1772, after their annexation of the
area.
The
town’s Polish name Piła — derived from the Polish root word 'pila,'
meaning ‘saw’ — referred to a place where rushing water powered a device used for sawing wood.
The word Schneidemühl is a literal
translation from Polish to German.
Although Piła was never regarded by its Jewish community as a shtetl in the strict sense of the word,
the Jews of the area simply wrote the name of their town פילה
in Hebrew letters.
From
the late 1700s until 1940, Schneidemühl was the home of
seven
generations of this webmaster's ancestors, the Simonstein
family.
* * *
(Photo courtesy Bella Rothenberg, Kfar Giladi,
Israel)
.
'Valley of the
Destroyed
Communities'
at Yad Vashem, on
the Mount of Remembrance in Israel.
The community of
Schneidemühl — one of 4,500 destroyed communities —
is
commemorated here in stone, together
with others of Pomerania, Posen and West Prussia.
* * *
Frequently asked
questions
- What happened to the Jews of Schneidemühl during
the Nazi period?
- The Jews of the community were rounded up
in 1940 and fell victim to the mass deportations 1941-44. (see article
below)
- Is there a Yizkor
book for Schneidemühl?
- No.
But
a
comprehensive
book
on
the
community's
history
has
recently
been
written. (see article below)
- How large was the Jewish community in its heydays,
and before the Nazi period?
- Approximately twelve hundred members
during the 1850s;
- six hundred and twenty-five members in the
late 1920s.
- Are there any Landsmannschaften
for the Jewish
community of
Schneidemühl?
- No.
Landsmannschaften were rarely formed for communities that used to be
located in the former Prussian province of Posen.
- What is the current name of Schneidemühl?
- Since the end of
the Second World War the town, situated in the
province of Wielkopolskie in north-western
Poland,
is known again by its original Polish name PIŁA.
- Are there any extant Mohel books (detailed
chronological
name
lists
of
circumcisions
performed
by
a
Mohel)
for the Jewish
community
of Schneidemühl?
- No.
Unfortunately,
the only Mohel book that was kept by the community during the 19th
century was destroyed
during the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938.
- Are there any extant Jewish birth, marriage or death
records
available for Schneidemühl?
- No.
None
of
the
Jewish
records
that
were
begun
in
1821
have
been located yet. It
is feared that they did not survive the Nazi
period.
- Where can one find any civil birth, marriage, death
records of Schneidemühl?
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The
truth about the deportations and fate
of the Jews of Schneidemühl
Over the past fifty
years,
numerous accounts concerning the fate of the Jews of
Schneidemühl have
appeared in print. However, none of them accord with historic record. They were but
distortions of
historical facts. Regrettably,
these
errors
have
been
perpetuated
to
this
day
in
numerous
books,
articles
and websites that deal
with this period of the Holocaust.
The
erroneos claim that the
Jews of Schneidemühl had been deported together with the
more than 1,200 Jews of Stettin (who were subsequently
sent to Piaski,) is not
supported by evidence found in the extant volume of files of
the former Reichsvereinigung
der
Juden
in
Deutschland. [Cf.
file
75
C
Re1,
No.
483,
Bundesarchiv
Berlin,
and
USHMM
Archives: RG-14.003M; Acc. 1993.A.059.
It must
therefore be stated that —
while
the
deportations of the Jews of
Schneidemühl had indeed been planned by the Gestapo
to
coincide with the terrible events that occurred in Stettin — those
actions
were NOT carried out together.
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History of the Jewish Community of
Schneidemühl:
1641 to the Holocaust
by
Peter
Simonstein
Cullman
Published
by
Avotaynu, Inc. USA
7" x 10", hardcover, 390 pp.
ISBN 1-886223-27-0 - 2006
While
until
recently no memorial book existed for the destroyed Jewish community of
Schneidemühl, the recent publication of this new comprehensive
work in
English brings
to life again the
true history of this 300-year-old community.
In documenting the growth of this community—from the arrival of Jews in
this part of Poland in the 16th century to its destruction in the 20th
century—this book offers any reader who has a keen interest in
German-Jewish
history a fine portrayal of this now vanished Jewish community. Viewed
against the background of major European
historical events and of Haskalah,
the
Jewish
Enlightenment
of
the
late
18th
century,
the
reader
is
also given a detailed
description in word and picture of the Tempel, the once splendid
synagogue of Schneidemühl.
As a result of many years of painstaking research by the author, the
lives and the fate of most members of this Jewish community — as it
existed in the 1930s — could be traced. The chapter Z'Chor features chronologies of
all those who were caught in the Nazis' web. Here their fate is
documented in detail to ensure that their memory is preserved.
The complete data of the 1939 German Minority
Census for Schneidemühl, several lists of
emigrants and survivors, as well as an annotated burial register,
covering the
period 1854-1940, with names and
data of more than nine hundred members of the community, are just some
of the many archival records found in this work.
Although not the slightest trace of a Jewish presence remains in
today's
renamed town Piła — this book brings back to memory a once notable,
vibrant and sizable Jewish community.
The book can
be
purchased directly from the publishers by visiting:
http://www.avotaynu.com/books/cullman.htm
Avotaynu, Inc.
155 N. Washington Avenue, Bergenfield, NJ USA
Tel. 1-800-286-8296 FAX: 201-387-2855
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Other webpages of
interest
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Links to external websites are
provided in good faith and for information
only.
Disclaimer: no responsibility
for materials contained in any website
linked to this site.
You are visitor
since October 2006
This
site was
last updated 21 October 2009
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Copyright ©
2006-2009
Peter Simonstein Cullman
Please direct any correspondence to:
.
aurifex@sympatico.ca
Webmaster:
P.
S.
Cullman
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