The Nobiscum Foundation is among the finalists of the 2025 POLIN Award! We are very grateful for the recognition of our work, and we are especially happy that among the finalists are people whose work we have known and admired for years! The finalists of […]
Yitzhak Grünbaum (1879-1970), a member of the Legislative Parliament and the Parliament of the First, Second, and Third Term of the Second Polish Republic, and one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence of Israel, earned his place in Płock’s history as the initiator […]
Borys Kowadło – photographer, was born on December 2, 1911 in a house at 4 Bielska Street, in the family of Dawid and Ruda nee Asz. His father was a ritual slaughterer. Borys Kowadło was a student at the photo studio of his brother-in-law Abram (Adam) Watman, which operated at 6 Kolegialna Street under the name “Foto-Salon”. During the interwar period, he lived at Sienkiewicza Street, in a house at number 31 (now 49 Sienkiewicza Street). Due to the growing antisemitism in Poland, Borys Kowadło left Płock and in 1933 went to Amsterdam, where several of his relatives lived. He was registered as a photographer in 1937. He was closely associated with the Polish-Jewish community in Amsterdam, organized around the Szymon An-ski association. After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans, due to Nazi regulations and deportations to concentration camps, he went into hiding and was active in the resistance movement under the pseudonym “Bernard van der Linden”. He also joined the underground group of photographers “De ondergedoken camera”, who took pictures of many events during the war (unfortunately most of their archives were lost). After the end of the war, Borys Kowadło traveled to Israel several times, where his brother Mojżesz lived. He was the author of many photo sessions from life in Israel. He died while traveling to Portugal and Spain, where he wanted to perpetuate the legacy of Sephardic Jewish life, on May 24, 1959.
Icek (Izaak) Bernsztajn – lawyer, teacher and publicist, was born on November 13, 1899 in Płock (in the house at 15 Kwiatka Street) in the family of Tobiasz and Sura. In 1918, he entered the seventh grade of the Philological Middle School of the Men’s […]
Yaakov (Jakub) Guterman – painter and illustrator, born in 1935 in Warsaw, the son of Simcha and Ewa née Alterowicz. His hometown is Płock, where he lived with his parents in a one-story house at 64 Sienkiewicza Street. Jakub’s father ran a knitting workshop and […]
Abram Hersz aka Alfred Blay was born on May 30, 1876 in Płock. His father Natan (1839-1915) came from Kalisz. His mother was Estera née Landau (1845-1928), daughter of Icek Tobiasz and Małka. Alfred Blay had three siblings: brother Szmul Tobiasz (1868-1899) and sisters Hinda Małka (born 1870) and Sura Liba (born 1872).
Blay was a well-known merchant and social activist in Płock: co-founder of the University for All, member of the Płock department of the Polish Culture Society, the Committee for Providing Aid to Jews in Płock, the Association of Jewish Merchants and the Jewish Charity Society. In 1916, he was elected to the board of the Jewish community in Płock. He also served as a lay judge in the Municipal Office. In the interwar period he ran a fabric shop at 11 Grodzka Street. During the German occupation he was arrested by the Gestapo, after being released from prison he was hiding in Warsaw. In 1946 he became the chairman of the Jewish Committee in Płock.
We are entering the seventh year of JewishPlock.eu – the most important online source of information about the history of the Płock Jewish community! On the website you will find family albums, biograms, information about places related to the Jewish community of the city of […]
An extraordinary publication on the history of the Jews of Płock has been published – it is a source study of the “Pinkas Hakahal” – chronicle of the Jewish community in Płock in the years 1762-1818, originally preserved in the collection of the Jewish Historical […]
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Adam Neuman-Nowicki (1925-2021) – a native of Płock, author of the book entitled “Struggle for life”. In connection with this special occasion, the Nobiscum Foundation prepares a new guidebook – “In the footsteps of Adam Neuman-Nowicki”, which will present places related to his childhood and youth, including the houses of Szmul Dawid Pszenica at 33 Sienkiewicza Street (today number 51), Salomon Bromberger at 18 Sienkiewicza (today number 38) and Rafał Płońskier at 4 Kolegialna Street, where Adam lived with his family, places of childhood games and school years, as well as many other locations that he mentions in his publication.
The author of the guidebook is Gabriela Nowak-Dąbrowska.
The book will be published thanks to co-funding of the City of Płock.
In the photo above (from the private collection of Anat Alperin): Adam (first from the left) in a “plane” with his mother Frymeta and brother Henryk, Płock 1931.
You can find the biogram of Adam below:
Lejbusz Pszenica, Szmul Dawid Pszenica, Chana Ryfka Głowińska z domu Żychlińska, Azriel Szlama Pszenica, Dwojra Gitla Pszenica, Estera Tauba Pszenica, Gnanczy Pszenica, Abram Hersz Pszenica, Bina Pszenica, Małka Pszenica, Beniamin Hersz Niedźwiedź, Naftali Markus Frendler, Hinda Frajdla Grynbaum, Szmul Majer Luszyński… Many Jews from Płock […]
