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. […]
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 World War I and the creation of the Polish state that this movement succeeded in establishing branches in almost every city and town, also in Płock.
Poale Zion actively participated in the elections, both to the city authorities of Płock and parliamentary. They conducted evening courses and organized labour unions that were responsible for strikes, as a result of which employers had to pay higher wages to employees. In 1925, members of the organization founded a dramatic theater and sports club called Stern. Members of the organization stood out in their fight against anti-Semitism in the pre-war years and as anti-Nazi fighters during the war.
Most of them were murdered along with the entire Jewish community during the Holocaust.
Bibliography: Plotzk. A History of an Ancient Jewish Community in Poland, ed. E. Eisenberg, Tel-Aviv 1967
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, […]
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 Ryfka. Josek Chaim Fuks, like his father-in-law Beniamin Koryto, traded in colonial goods. Their stores were located at Szeroka Street. At the same time, Fuks was the owner of the real estate located at Plac Konstantynowski (currently Nowy Rynek), mortgage number 204B.
Sura Łaja and Josek Chaim Fuks had seven children: daughters Tyla (1879-1939), Zysa Liba (born 1862), Ryfka (born 1865), Bajla Rojza (1870-1927) and Estera (1874-1933) and sons Benjamin (1877-1939) and Symcha Lejb (1875-1940). Symcha Lejb Fuks married Ryfka Brana nee Altman (1883-1941), with whom he had seven children: sons Jakub Szulim (born 1911), Izaak Józef (born 1906), Beniamin (born 1915) and Tobiasz (born 1921) and daughters Frymeta (1908-1943), Rojza Liba (1910-1943) and Gnancza (born 1919). In 1908 Bajla Rojza Fuks married Chaim Icek Luidor from Kutno, son of Mordka Hersz and Perla Cyrla nee Gajst. From this relationship three daughters were born: Tyla (born 1912), Zysa (born 1912) and Ryfka (born 1914). The eldest son of Symcha Lejb and Ryfka Brana, Izaak Józef joined the Zionist Movement in Plock at a very young age. In 1933 he married Sura (Sarah) Brana Dach. Sensing what was about to happen and realizing Europe was no longer a safe place – they emigrated to Israel. In 1934 their first son, Aviv (Ben Shai) was born in Tel Aviv.
Symcha Lejb Fuks died on May 20, 1940. He was beaten to death by the Gestapo on Kwiatka Street in Płock. His relatives – Tyla, Ryfka and Beniamin were killed in Gąbin during the bombing of the city on September 10, 1939. Ryfka Brana Fuks née Altman, died on July 1, 1941 in Bodzentyn from a heart attack during deportation. Rojza Liba Fuks died on June 5, 1943 from typhoid in the ghetto in Częstochowa. Similarly, her sister Frymeta. Icek Luidor died on September 20, 1942 from typhoid in Bodzentyn.
The son of Symcha Lejb Fuks – Jakub Szulim survived the Holocaust and after the war joined the District Jewish Committee in Płock (he was the treasurer there) and was one of the founders of the Gerszon Dua Clothing Workshop Cooperative in Płock, which was established in 1949 in the building of the former synagogue at Kwiatka 7 Street. Jakub Szulim Fuks married Chaja Sura Jakubowicz (born 1919), daughter of Dawid and Itta nee Kornmel. Her family came from Drobin. In 1946, their daughter Regina was born, and two years later, son Leonard. At the turn of 1949 and 1950, the Fuks family emigrated to Israel.
Photographs from private collection of Arie Fuks. Thank you!
Unidentified photos:
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, […]
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 Płock lawyer as well as a social and cultural activist.
Roza had two younger brothers – Mosiek (Mieczysław) (born 1913) and Aleksander (born 1918). Her mother – Liza, was the owner of a tailor’s workshop at the 22 Old Market Square. At the outbreak of World War II, the Holcman family lived on 9 Grodzka Street.
In September 1939, Roza and her mother escaped from Płock and headed east. Roza worked in the delegation of the Polish government in exile, based in London. In 1942, she was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in a Soviet labor camp, initially in Samarka in Kazakhstan, for recruiting soldiers to the Home Army in the east. In 1943, she met Philip Rosenblit, an American dentist who served as a doctor. In 1944, their daughter was born in the camp. Liza Holcman managed to obtain the NKVD’s permission to take a child from the camp when the girl was 11 months old. They left for Moscow, and in 1946 returned to Poland, to Warsaw. Roza was released from the camp in 1955. She joined her mother and daughter in Warsaw. She was re-entered on the list of attorneys. She practiced until the age of 70 in the Attorney Department No. 9 in Warsaw. After returning from the camp, Roza maintained friendly contacts with people from Płock – judge Kenigsberg and prof. Alfred Jesion, who was a pre-war friend of her brother Mieczysław.
Text based on family memories.
Synagogalna Street is one of the streets forming the former Jewish district in Płock. Its name comes from the now-defunct building of the main synagogue located on the square between Synagogalna and Tylna Streets, marked with mortgage number 32 (you can read more about the […]
