Węgrów Memorial Book

 A few years ago local authorities in Węgrów said that Polish-Jewish relations were great and we have to translate Memorial Book to prove that. But then they didn't. So I decided to do it.

You can se the result here (it's in Polish, but you can read it with Google Translate and there is one short chapter translated into English).

https://wegrow.jewish.pl/ksiega-pamieci/ksiega-pamieci-wegrowa/

If you want to help and support this project you can do it here: https://pomagam.pl/wegrow

In the coming months

We will be extremely busy in the coming months. We will translate from Yiddish into Polish the first part of the Memorial Book of Sokołów Podlaski thanks to the support of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland (the cost of the project is PLN 12,000, of which the Association donated PLN 4,000) and ... surprise - we will translate a part of the Memorial Book of Węgrów from Hebrew into Polish (thanks to a private donor), which we will also publish online for free!

Do you want to support our translations? You can do it here: https://pomagam.pl/sokolowpodlaski

“Der Tam” in Polish

"Der Tam" was a humorous newspaper, created and handwritten by two uncles of Amir Earon, Avrum-Shiye Weintrob and Aron-Wolf (later known as Zeev) Weintrob. Aron-Wolf was 18 years old, and his brother was few years older. The document was written in 1918 in Węgrów.
Polish translation: Agata Kondrat and Anna Szyba.

Der Tam

We are still working on transation of the book by Perec Granatsztejn but we already know what will come next!

"Der Tam" , a mock-up of a newspaper, created and handwritten by two uncles of Amir Earon, Avrum-Shiye Weintrob and Aron-Wolf (later known as Zeev) Weintrob. Aron-Wolf was 18 years old, and his brother was few years older. The document was written in 1918 in Węgrów. It is in Yiddish and Hebrew and we want to translate it into Polish.

Wilm Hosenfeld

Wilm Hosenfeld was a German Army officer who rose to the rank of Hauptmann by the end of the war. He helped to hide or rescue several Poles, including Jews, in Nazi-occupied Poland, and helped Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman (Szpilman is widely known as the protagonist of the 2002 Roman Polański film "The Pianist")to survive, hidden, in the ruins of Warsaw during the last months of 1944. Hosenfeld was stationed in Wegrów in December 1939, where he remained until his battalion was moved another 30 km away to Jadów at the end of May 1940. He visited Sokołów Podlaski several times. In his letters to his wife he mentions a railway station in Sokołów and refugees who came to the town.
In June 2009 he was posthumously recognized as a Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
The picture was taken during his stay in Węgrów.

Rabbi Yakov Mendel Morgenstern

Yakov Mendel Morgenstern, son of the Sokolower rebbe, was the rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Węgrów. On erev Yom Kippur in 1939, just a few weeks after the Germans captured the town, SS officers invaded his home. Reports of what happened next differ slightly in details, but the tragic outcome is the same.

The SS officers dragged Rabbi Morgenstern to Market Square in the center of Węgrów and ordered him to undress. Then they gave him a broom and demanded that he gather the manure in the square (which was plentiful, as horse and buggy was the prevalent mode of transportation in Węgrów) and carry it to the town dump in his shtreiml [fur hat].
As the rabbi tried to do what he was told, he was stabbed with a bayonet. What happened next is not certain. Either the initial bayonet went into Rabbi Morgenstern's abdomen and he died immediately or he was tortured by several bayonet thrusts and died while he was working.
After Rabbi Morgenstern was murdered, the Great Synagogue in Węgrów was closed. It was destroyed by the Nazis.