Bielsk Podlaski

Welcome to the ShtetLinks site for Bielsk Podlaski (also known in Yiddish as Bielsk Podliask). We hope this site will help you learn more about your ancestral shtetl, how your ancestors lived and perhaps help you discover names of ancestors or relatives. Some original source materials listing names of people from Bielsk Podlaski are contained in this site. This site also contains links to external resources pertaining to our shtetl and Jewish life in Poland. If you have photos, documents, stories or materials that you would like to contribute to this site, or if you find any errors, please email the coordinator, who will be happy to assist with the scanning of photos or other materials you may have. Remember to bookmark this page.

History and Background

• An Introduction to Bielsk, by Mark W. Gordon
• Yizkor Book: The complete English section from Book in the Holy Memory of the Bielsk Podliask Jews
• View the Bielsk Podlaski Yizkor book online at the New York Public Library
• History of Bielsk on the JewishGen Belarus SIG
• The Bielsker Bruderlicher Unterstitzungs Verein (translated as Brotherly Assistance Society) was a mutual aid society established by people from Bielsk Podlaski. Materials available on this site include a membership directory and pages from souvenir journals with many names of people from Bielsk Podlaski and surrounding areas who belonged to this society founded in New York. The souvenir journals are a testament to the rich social activities of the Verein.  Now includes the complete Souvenir Journal of the Loan Fund's 20th Anniversary Banquet, the BBUV's incorporation papers from 1888 and the complete 1928 40th Anniversary Souvenir Journal.
• Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland (Pinkas Hakehillot Polin), chapter on Bielsk
• Letters to Herbert Hoover from the children of the Second Jewish Kitchen in Bielsk, Jewish Orphanage No. 4, and Jewish Kitchen No. 4 in Siemiatycze, Bielsk Province
• 1911 - 1912 Russian Business Directory
• 1928 Business Directory
• 1930 Business Directory
• 1936 Phone Directory
• 1937 Phone Directory
• Bielsk Virtual Shtetl on the Museum of the History of Polish Jews - Polin

Cemeteries

• Tour the Bielsk Podlaski Virtual Cemetery
• Video of the Jewish Cemetery in Bielsk Podlaski with English narration 
  
• Video of the Jewish Cemetery in Bielsk Podlaski
• Jewish Cemetery in Bielsk Podlaski. Note that the English text accessed via the link "English text" is slightly different than a translation of the Polish text into English. Let your browser do the translation to English.
  
• The creator of the website linked to above, Krzysztof Bielawski, was interviewed in an article on the Times of Israel titled ‘Annihilation’ of Poland’s Jewish cemeteries documented in provocative book
  
• Video of the Jewish Cemetery in Bransk
• Video of a new memorial in the Bransk Jewish Cemetery
  
• International Cemetery Project report on status of the Jewish cemetery in Bielsk Podlaski.
• Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY and at Mt. Lebanon cemetery in Queens, NY have grounds purchased by the Bielsker Bruderlicher Untershtitzungs Verein (BBUV). Some members of the BBUV were buried on the burial society plots located in these cemeteries. Phone calls to the cemeteries may help you locate ancestors or relatives. 
• Search for Bielsk Podlaski in the NY Burial Society Database on the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York web site.
• Poland Jewish Cemetery Restoration Project
• The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) is a database of names and other identifying information from cemeteries and burial records worldwide, from the earliest records to the present.

Images of Bielsk Podlaski

• Click here to view images of Bielsk Podlaski

Family Photos

View photos of families from Bielsk Podlaski

Synagogues

• Photo of the interior of the wooden synagogue in Bielsk, circa 1920
• Sketch of the central wooden synagogue in Bielsk
• Photo of the exterior of the central wooden synagogue in a local museum
• Photo of a synagogue in Bielsk Podlaski
• Images of Polish Synagogues (none in Bielsk Podlaski)
• The Bialystok Great Synagogue
• Wooden Synagogues of Poland in the 17th and 18th Century
• Kristallnacht and Synagogue Desecration, photos of synagogues devastated by the Nazis, includes photos of the synagogues in Orla and Bialystok not far from Bielsk Podlaski. Part of A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust

Jewish Life in the Old Country

While not specific to Bielsk Podlaski the materials can perhaps give us a glimpse of the life our ancestors lived.

• We Remember Jewish Bialystok, major city near Bielsk Podlaski
• The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Poland
• The Jews of Poland
• Beyond the Pale - The Jews of Lithuania and Poland

• Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools is a wonderful and moving audio program containing music, stories and memories from a world now vanished.
• 2001
• 2002
• 2003
• 2004
• 2005
• 2006 
  

• The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive's Virtual Cinema has a number of films that you can view for free on the Internet. These films can provide an idea of how our ancestors might have lived in Poland before the Holocaust. Films include the following five taken in 1939 before the holocaust:
  • Jewish Life In Bialystok (including footage of the great synagogue in Bialystok and a young girl eating a bialy)
  • A Day In Warsaw
  • Jewish Life In Kracow
  • Jewish Life In Lvov
  • Jewish Life In Vilna
  • other films about Jewish communities, the Holocaust, early Zionism and Israeli statehood.

• The Yiddish Radio Project special report on NPR, The Yiddish Radio Project web site.
• The Yiddish Voice, links to Yiddish audio on the web. 
• The Wolf Lewkowicz Collection, a set of almost 200 Yiddish letters (with English translations) written by Wolf Lewkowicz, sent from Poland to his nephew in the United States, Sol J. Zissman, from 1922 to 1939. They provide insight into Jewish life in pre-war Poland.

Archival Holdings

• Search the Ellis Island database for records of immigrants from Bielsk Podlaski. Searching for Bielsk, without using a surname, returns 1,171 records. Searching for Billsk returns 19 records.
• Locate records of Jewish passengers in the Ellis Island database. This is not a complete database of all Jewish immigrants through Ellis Island but may be of great assistance in locating your ancestors.
• The Auschwitz searchable database allows you to search for records of those murdered at Auschwitz by name, place of birth (Bielsk Podlaski - 4 records, Bielsk -5 records), and last residence (Bielsk Podlaski - 2 records).
  
• The JewishGen All Poland Database, containing over 2 million entries for individuals from Poland.
• Bielsk Podlaski holdings in Eastern European archives identified by the Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation. Search the Archive Database for Bielsk to see the inventory showing holdings in five different archives. Materials include census records taken in eleven different years, birth, death, marriage, emigration, army and notary records.
  
• Bielsk Podlaski holdings identified by Jewish Records Indexing - Poland. This list is a subset of of the holdings identified by the Routes to Roots Foundation. You may search for ancestors records on JRI-PL.
• JewishGen InfoFile - Polish Archives Holdings of Jewish Vital Records.
• Polish State Archives and the State Archives in Bialystok. Also see Ordering records from the Polish State Archives.
  
• Read chapters excerpted from Jewish Roots in Poland on the Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation.
• Writing to Poland JewishGen InfoFile.
• The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has the Book in the Holy Memory of the Bielsk-Podliask Jews which contains an English section (see link at the top of this page to read this section). The main body of the book is a few hundred pages in Hebrew or Yiddish with photos and a necrology.
  

Born in Skidel, Lithuania in 1820. Died 1886. Served as the Chief Rabbi of Bielsk from 1856 until his death in 1886. Yellin's published works are sermons, responsa, commentary, and "glosses" to the Babylonian Taimud. Known as Yefeh Einayim, the glosses were printed in the back of the Vilna edition of the Talmud. See the following for references:

• The Ha'amek Davar of Naftali Zevi Yehuda Berlin
• Beasts of Burden and One-Armed Clockmakers  
• Wikipedia 
• Jewish Encyclopedia  
• WorldCat entry: Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin, author of Yefeh einayim, by Rivka Ziskind 
• Center for Jewish History 
• Yellin, Aryeh Loeb. "Yefeh Einayim" in the Babylonian Talmud, Vilna Edition

• Current map (148k)
• Map of region dated 1613 showing Bielsk
• Hand drawn water color map (small file: 71k)
• Hand drawn water color map (larger file: 242k)
• Another hand drawn map
• Photo of map board on street
• MapQuest map showing Bielsk Podlaski (Latitude 52°76´, Longitude 23°20´)
• 1899 Grodno Gubernia Map from Notes on Gubernia District Maps
• Resources for Grodno Gubernia on the JewishGen Belarus SIG

• Letter from the last Rabbi in Bielsk testifying to the year of birth of a native of Bielsk
• Beitar letter, dated March 28, 1935, explaining the documents and information required for immigration to Palestine

Holocaust

• The Bielsker Sefer Torah: From a cobbler's bench in 1945 to an Israeli shul in 2013
  
• Bielsk Podlaski on the Encyclopedia Judaica
• Bielsk Podlaski commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto: Original web page in Polish from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine - English translation using Google Translate
• German Invasion of Poland, 1939
• Deportations to Treblinka (on the Svisloch ShtetLinks page) refers to deportations of 11,000 Jews from the Bielsk Podlaski area to Treblinka in 1942
• Liquidation of the Ghettos and the Deportations to the Camps (November 2, 1942—March 12, 1942)
• Trials of German Major War Criminals contains a reference to executions in Bielsk
• Judgment in the Cologne Court of Justice record of war crimes trial, refers to 1942 Jewish population in Bielsk
• Shtetl, on PBS Frontline, includes information about Treblinka where Jews from Bielsk Podlaski were murdered
• We Remember Treblinka
• Simon Wiesenthal Center Multimedia Learning Center
• Treblinka, on the Jewish Virtual Library
• Treblinka, on JewishGen
• Testimonies of Treblinka SS-Men, on A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
• Treblinka, on The United States Holocaust Museum
• Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks) the official information web site for the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation against Swiss Banks and other Swiss Entities.
• Visual History Archive, established by Steven Spielberg to videotape and preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. The foundation has collected more than 50,000 testimonies.
  
• The Polish Jews home page, created to preserve the memory of those millions of Polish Jews who suffered and perished..

Search JewishGen. Search the JewishGen Family Finder for others researching Bielsk Podlaski. Also search the message archives for references to Bielsk Podlaski.

Books

• Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings In Eastern Poland by Tomasz Wisniewski. Two pages of this book are specific to the history of and present conditions in Bielsk Podlaski.
• History of the Jews in Poland and Russia by Simon Dubnow.

Other Links of Interest

• The Blumberg Family from Bielsk Podlaski

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Compiled by Andrew Blumberg Updated February 19, 2021 Copyright © 2002 - 2019 Andrew Blumberg

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