A report on war losses

 The Polish government a few days ago presented a report on war losses, demanding reparations from Germany. Imagine, that  (among other things), the Polish government wants compensation from the Germans for the Jedwabne pogrom! In the report they also write about Sokolow.

In the report, Mr. Rafal Dmowski of the University of Siedlce (I don’t know who he is) described on two pages the losses of Sokolow during the war. He was wrong basically on all counts.  

He wrote about the "almost complete destruction of the town center" in September 1939. Well, no. Kupientynska Street was destroyed at the beginning of the war, and that's where the photos of burned-out houses come from. The town center - houses, church, town hall - survived, and later the Germans created a ghetto there. Massive destruction occurred in 1944, when the town was bombed by the Russians, but there is not a word about this in the report (why???).

We further read that during the war "a temporary detention center was established on Magistracka Street." Apparently so, but Magistracka Street was named Magistracka in 1944 already after the end of the war. That's because a magistrate was organized in the building of this "prison" - a pre-war Jewish house of prayer - in connection with the bombing of the town hall at the corner of Siedlecka and Dluga Streets by the Russians.

The author goes on to write that the ghetto was established "in the area of Piękna-Prosta-Mala Streets," placing the ghetto completely outside the town at the time. I have the impression that he is guessing because he doesn't know where the ghetto might have been. And he doesn't know because he doesn't know the sources.

Then we have the information that "before the outbreak of war, there were about 4,000 Jews living in the town." Wrong again! According to statistics from the Central Statistical Office, in 1921 Sokolow had a population of 8055, of which 4430 people declared themselves to be of the Jewish faith. In 1931, out of a total population of 9918, 5027 people declared being Jewish.

In the next sentence we learn that "the Germans proceeded to liquidate the ghetto on September 30, 1942." Another untruth. It was September 22, 1942, a date I learned with certainty, and since 2011 I have been organizing commemorations on that day, as Mr. Dmowski studying in Siedlce should have known. Just as he should have read our translations from Yiddish to Polish of the memorial books - available for free on the internet!

So dear friends this whole report has nothing to do with history, but rather with propaganda.