My grandfather, Izydor Wajcman (born 1867), came from a large Jewish family associated with Wyszogród. He was the son of Szmul Jochim (1841-1892), son of Zelik Lewek (born 1794) and Ryfka née Eben (born 1796), and Estera Sura née Albert (1837-1901), daughter of Mosiek Albert […]
On August 18, 1920, the Bolshevik army attacked Płock. Until August 19, the city’s civilian population, including women and children, heroically defended themselves on the barricades along with the army, preventing soldiers of Bolshevik Russia from gaining the bridgehead and crossing the Vistula. In the […]
Hechaluc began its activity in Płock in 1923. Its founders were A. Kowalski, F. Fliderblum and M. Kenigsberg. Szymon Margulin, Mojżesz Zander and A. Lejbgot were also part of the board of the organization. The organization’s goal was to emigrate its members to Eretz Israel. Despite the fact that orthodox communities in Płock opposed the newly formed group, the number of its members increased from year to year, and the local branch of Hechaluc became a center of various Zionist activities.
While the Hechaluc organization consisted of young people over the age of 18 who were preparing to travel to Eretz Israel, younger boys and girls were members of its sister organization Hechaluc Hatzair. The organization prepared young people for their future lives as pioneers and focused on cultural activities. In the 1930s, many young boys and girls left the city for Eretz Israel, where most of them lived as pioneers, often in kibbutzim.
Young pioneers from Płock who never reached Israel were murdered, like many others, by the Nazis during World War II.
Bibliography: Plotzk. A History of an Ancient Jewish Community in Poland, ed. E. Eisenberg, Tel-Aviv 1967
The branch of the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party Poale Zion was founded in Płock in 1904. After the Russian Revolution in 1905, the activity of Poale Zion was banned by tsarist police, and the members of the organization went underground. It was only after […]
Alfred Jesion was born in Płock on January 4, 1919 as the son of the sculptor Hersz Lejzor (Herman) (1886-1933) and Chawa nee Szechtman. The Jesion family lived in a tenement house at 4 Nowy Rynek (New Market Square). Alfred Jesion was interested in sculpture […]
Symcha Guterman was born in Warsaw in 1903 as the third child of Mendel, a Talmudist scholar from Radzymin, and Bajla Gitla nee Fiszman, who came from the village of Kozienice near Radom. Her father was the owner of a mill. During World War I, the Guterman family moved to Płock, where Mendel’s brother Rachmil lived. During the interwar period, Symcha Guterman established his own knitting workshop. He was also one of the co-founders of the Frajhajt organization in Płock. In 1933 he married Chawa Alterowicz (born 1902), daughter of Jakub and Nycha, who was a dressmaker by profession. In 1935 their son Jakub was born. The Guterman family lived at 64 Sienkiewicza Street. During the occupation, Symcha Guterman together with his wife and son stayed in the Płock ghetto. On March 1, 1941, they were transported to the camp in Działdowo, then to the Radom District. The last place of their journey during the occupation was Warsaw.
Within a few months before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising he was a soldier of the Home Army. He took part in the Warsaw Uprising, which broke out on August 1, 1944. He was killed in the battle for the Pawiak in the first days of August 1944. He left a valuable diary, in which he wrote down the history of Płock Jews from the period of occupation. The diary entitled “Kartki z pożogi” (“Leaves from Fire”) was published in Poland in 2004 by the Scientific Society of Płock.
Bibliography:
S. Guterman, Kartki z pożogi, Płock 2004
G. Nowak, Żydzi płoccy. Album pamięci, Płock 2015
J. Przedpełski, J. Stefański, Żydzi płoccy w dziejach miasta, Płock 2012
On March 19, 1860, in Płock, the marriage was concluded between Sura Łaja Koryto (born 1840), the daughter of Beniamin from Sochaczew (1802-1877) and Tyla nee Sierota (1804-1874), and Josek Chaim Fuks (1836-1891), the son of residents of the town of Kutno – Lejb and […]
The Zylber family came from the village of Turza Wielka (Płock poviat, Brudzeń Duży commune). Probably the lack of perspectives prompted the father of the family – Chaim Zylber (born 1871), who worked in the village as a worker, to move in the early 20s […]
The owner of the building in the historicizing style from 1873 was a grain and wool trader Markus Frenkiel Wolffsohn (1830-1910), later his son Izydor (Icek) inherited it. The next owner was the merchant Moszek Firstenberg (born 1852), son of Izrael and Fajga née Szlam, who acquired it in 1911. After the death of Moszek Firstenberg, half of the property was inherited by his wife Sura née Asz (born 1853). The other half of the estate was inherited by Blima Fryszberg, Icek Jakub Firstenberg, Mariem Mucha and Abram Firstenberg. Icek Jakub Firstenberg was a grain trader, co-owner of the Młyn Handlowy (Trade Mill) at 21 Bielska Street.
In the tenement house at 13 Stary Rynek, there was a bookstore and a stationery store of Mejer Lejb Buki (ca. 1857-1909). At first, Buki worked as a shop assistant in the bookstore of Izydor Wasserman. In 1885, he set up his own bookstore, where he also had a book rental. Buki’s bookstore was very well-stocked – customers could buy both Polish and foreign literature there. In 1907 Mejer Lejb Buki opened in Warsaw the Book and Expeditionary Store at 5 Elektoralna Street, serving the provincial bookstores. He probably ran his book business until 1909.
At 13 Old Market Square before the war, the hat store of J. Fryderson and the leather store of Gutman Zielonka were also registered (since 1929).
Roza Holcman (born in 1910), daughter of Lejb (1886-1930) and Liza Lea nee Rozenberg (1888-1975), was the first female lawyer in Płock. In 1934, she graduated from the University of Warsaw. She was trained as a legal practitioner by Kazimierz Mayzner (1883-1951) – a well-known […]
