Bielsk Podlaski

Bielsk Podlaski, Poland, has a long Jewish history. This site connects you with that history through first-person accounts, Holocaust testimonies, family histories, and photographs. It also contains links to archival materials, encyclopedic works, and other resources pertaining to Bielsk Podlaski and to Jewish life in Poland. This site can help you learn more about how your ancestors lived, and perhaps help you discover names or photos of relatives. A significant portion of this material has been shared or translated by others with ties to Bielsk. If you have photos, documents, stories or materials related to Bielsk Podlaski that you would like to share, or if you find any errors, please email the coordinator.

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Yizkor Book

The memorial book of the Jews from Bielsk Podlaski (in Polish: księga pamięci Żydów Bielska Podlaskiego) is titled Book in the Holy Memory of the Bielsk Podliask Jews Whose Lives Were Taken During the Holocaust Between 1939 and 1944. Through it, survivors and their families speak about the history of the town, what life there was like, its people, and their fate. The book contains a brief section in English, along with more extensive Hebrew and Yiddish sections. The complete Yiddish section has been translated to English, and the Hebrew section is in the process of being translated. Many of the Hebrew chapters have been completed. Please click here to read about the Bielsk Podlaski Yizkor Book Translation Project.

• The table of contents provides access to the complete English section, the Hebrew and Yiddish chapters that have been translated into English, and a necrology of over 1,100 names.
• A scan of the English section of the Bielsk memorial book, with fully searchable text, can be downloaded in PDF format (44 MB).
• To view a scan of the entire book, including the English, Hebrew, and Yiddish sections, download it from the Yiddish Book Center, which also offers reprints.
• Use Google Translate to read the English translations in other languages (works best in Google Chrome):
• Polski - Kliknij tutaj, aby skorzystać z Tłumacza Google i przeczytać przetłumaczone przez JewishGen księgi pamiątkowe Żydów z Bielska Podlaskiego na język polski (Księga Świętej Pamięci Żydów z Bielska Podlaskiego, których życie zostało odebrane podczas Holokaustu w latach 1939-1944). Księga pamięci Żydów Bielska Podlaskiego. Działa najlepiej w Google Chrome.
• русский - Нажмите здесь, чтобы использовать Google Translate, чтобы прочитать переводы JewishGen мемориальной книги евреев из Бельска-Подляского на русский язык (Книга святой памяти евреев Бельского Подляска, чьи жизни были отняты во время Холокоста между 1939 и 1944 годами). Лучше всего работает в Google Chrome.
• Українська - Клацніть тут, щоб скористатися Google Translate, щоб прочитати переклад JewishGen меморіальної книги євреїв з Більська Підляського українською мовою (Книга святої пам’яті євреїв Більська Підляського, чиї життя були забрані під час Голокосту між 1939 і 1944 роками). Найкраще працює в Google Chrome.

Families and People

Family histories contain unique stories, perspectives, documents, and photographs of people and life in Bielsk. They are presented here as a way of supplementing the Yizkor book. If you would like to add your family history, please contact the coordinator. 

• The Barchat Family
• The Blumberg Family
• The Chrabolowski Family
• Libby Uzycki Ferber Elson and her family - includes photos, identification documents, and a hand drawn map of Bielsk Podlaski
• The Kac Family, includes photos taken in Bielsk Podlaski before WWII
• The Kaplan / Kaplanski Family
• The Kleszczelski and Kremberg Families
• Chuna Tikotzky
• Binyomen Brawerman / Binyomen Rotberg
  
• View other photos of families from Bielsk Podlaski, contributed by the JewishGen community

History and Background

• Bielsk Podlaski in the Sources and the Book of Bielsk: an Historical Survey, by Haim Rabin
• Bielsk in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland (Pinkas Hakehillot Polin)
• Shabbot in a Small Town (Bielsk) in Russia Before the First World War, by I. Semiat
• The Jewish School in Bielsk and Like Children to Their Mother by Libe Utzyski
• Image of a Society, Kehila and Rabbinate, and Opinions Views and Ideological Movements, by H. Rabin
• An Introduction to Bielsk, by Mark W. Gordon
• Entries in the early 1900s Jewish Encyclopedia and the 2007 Encyclopedia Judaica
• Details about the Case of Blood Libel in Bielsk (a chapter in the Yizkor book) are found in the Jewish Encyclopedia
• A brief History of 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
• The Bielsker Bruderlicher Unterstitzungs Verein (BBUV, translated as Bielsker Brotherly Assistance Society) was a mutual aid society founded in 1888 in New York by people from Bielsk Podlaski and surrounding areas. Materials available include a membership directory, incorporation papers, souvenir journals, and a scrollable list of over 800 names in the 1928 journal. The souvenir journals are a testament to the rich social activities of the BBUV. 
  

Holocaust

• The Bielsk Podlaski Ghetto includes first-person accounts and Holocaust testimonies, photographs, encyclopedic entries, and maps of the ghetto with the location of historic Jewish sites.
• Opinions Views and Ideological Movements, by Haim Rabin.
  
• An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland, by Kenneth B. Moss. “At the center of this book was a young man from the eastern Polish town of Bielsk Podlaski who wrote [an autobiography] under the pseudonym Binyomen Rotberg.” “Well before the Holocaust, Moss demonstrates, Polish fascism and antisemitism had bankrupted every extant Jewish political ideology—from Communism to Zionism to liberalism to religious Orthodoxy—leaving Polish Jews a futureless people as they entered the fateful era of war and genocide.” Google Books offers a free preview. Book reviews can be read here and here. Rotberg's handwritten Yiddish autobiography can be read online at the Center for Jewish History website.
  
• “Jews in Bielsk Podlaski County, 1939-1945,” is a chapter in Night Without End, The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland, released in September 2022 and reviewed here. Google Books provides a preview making the entire chapter, along with the book’s preface, available to read online for free. The chapter on Bielsk Podlaski County is written by Barbara Engelking, co-editor of the book with Jan Grabowski. Engelking has been in the news because of criticism from the Polish government over comments she made in a TV interview marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 2023) about the treatment of Jews by Poland and Poles during the Holocaust.
• 20 years before the Holocaust, pogroms killed 100,000 Jews – then were forgotten. ‘In the Midst of Civilized Europe’ by Jeffrey Veidlinger revisits the brutal violence in 1918-1921 that portended a genocide of Europe’s Jews, and was soon overshadowed by it. A presentation by the author can be heard here.
  
• The Attitudes of the Poles Toward the Jews, an excerpt from the memoir by Calel Perechodnik, Am I A Murderer? Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman, is available on the Jewish Virtual Library. Further information about this memoir can be found on YadVashem here and here, and on the USHMM.
• The Polish Police: Collaboration in the Holocaust (PDF), by Jan Grabowski, on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• The Holocaust in Poland on Wikipedia
• The German Invasion of Poland, 1939
• Shtetl, on PBS Frontline, "tells the homecoming story of two elderly Polish-American Jews who return to their families’ shtetl in Bransk [near Bielsk Podlaski], Poland, where 2,500 Jews lived before most were sent to Treblinka’s gas chambers." The site includes the entire three-hour documentary, information about Treblinka, and other resources. PBS also provides an educator's primer, classroom activities, a timeline, and maps for use in the classroom in conjunction with the documentary.
• Oral histories, photographs, and other materials related to the Holocaust and Bielsk can be found on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This link will provide search results on the term Bielsk Podlaski. This link will provide search results from their collection using the word Bielsk.
• This article about the 1941 pogrom in Jedwabne mentions pogroms in other towns including Bielsk Podlaski. The paper on which the article is based, (titled "Wokół Jedwabnego," translated as Jedwabne and Beyond) dates the pogrom in Bielsk Podlaski to July 5–7, 1941. Although no longer available at the link provided at the bottom of the article, the paper (a PDF) can be downloaded here. Twelve pages in English follow the table of contents.
• Report on the publication of a Polish book titled "The Art of Survival. Soviet deportations from the Bielsko Poviat 1940–1941. Deportees’ Accounts."
• Yad Vashem’s The Righteous Among the Nations Database lists 36 results in a search for Bielsk Podlaski.
• Between November 2 and 15, 1942, approximately 7,000 local Jews and 4,000 more from Boćki, Brańsk, Narew, Orla, Rudka, Kleszczele, and Milejczyce, were deported from the ghetto of Bielsk Podlaski to Treblinka. A Year in Treblinka (full text), by Jankiel Wiernik, is a first-person account of the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews at the extermination camp. Weirnik's early account was published by the Forverts in 1944 and later republished online by The Forward.
• Treblinka on the Jewish Virtual Library, JewishGen, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and on Yad Vashem here, here, and here.
• These are the holy names of Bielsk Podlaski, a necrology from the Bielsk Podlaski yizkor book

After the war

• Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland After Liberation, on the Yad Vashem website.
• The destruction of Jewish cemeteries in Poland has continued long after the war. Krzysztof Bielawski was interviewed by the Times of Israel about his book Zagłada cmentarzy żydowskich, which translates to “Extermination of Jewish cemeteries.” English excerpts are available.
• 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 Jews in Poland Since the Liberation is a State Department report written in 1946. It reports on antisemitism and violence against Jews in Poland before and after the war. The report attracted new attention in 2018 with the introduction of legislation in Poland that criminalized attributing any responsibility for the Holocaust to Poland or the Polish state. The State Department report was summarized in a 2018 Newsweek article titled Poles Treated Jews As Badly As Nazis, Says Secret 1946 U.S. Report.
• Controversy over the Polish law continues. Examples include Polish official fired after calling Holocaust law ‘stupid’ and Hundreds of academics and institutions condemn Polish government’s attack on Holocaust historian.
• The above is also covered in a recent article titled "Poland is one of the most progressive countries in Holocaust remembrance" 
• Bielsk Podlaski commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto with the placement of a memorial plaque. Use your browser’s translation function to read the article in English. Enlarged images of the memorial plaque shown in the article can be seen here.
• Another article about the memorial plaque states that it was erected at the site of the former Shaare Zion Beth Midrash. Use your browser’s translation function to read the article in English.
• The Bielsker Sefer Torah: From a cobbler's bench in 1945 to an Israeli shul in 2013
• Trials of German Major War Criminals - A transcript from the Nuremberg Trials contains a reference to 11,084 Jews executed on November 9, 1941, in Bielsk.
• Testimonies of Treblinka SS-Men, on A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
• Judgment in the Cologne Court of Justice is a record of war crimes trials. It refers to the 1942 Jewish population in Bielsk.

Cemeteries

• The Bielsk Podlaski Virtual Cemetery, contains a list of graves, photos of matzevot, videos, cemetery reports, and more. 
• Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY and at Mt. Lebanon cemetery in Queens, NY have grounds purchased by the Bielsker Bruderlicher Unterstitzungs Verein (BBUV). Members of the BBUV were buried on the burial society plots located in these cemeteries. Phone calls to the cemeteries may help you locate relatives. 
• Search for Bielsk Podlaski in the NY Burial Society Database on the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York web site.
• Video of the Jewish Cemetery in Bransk
• Video of a new memorial in the Bransk Jewish Cemetery
• 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.

Synagogues

• The Synagogues of Bielsk Podlaski
  
• Photo of another synagogue in Bielsk Podlaski
• The Bialystok Great Synagogue
• Wooden Synagogues, by Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, is one of the most, if not the most, important and comprehensive works on the wooden synagogues of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Here is a review of the book following the release of its English translation in 1959, and here is an article about the updated and expanded version of the book that was released in 2015 titled Heaven’s Gates: Wooden Synagogues in the Territories of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• Wikipedia entry on Wooden synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• 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. This is a part of A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust.

The Rabbis of Bielsk

The following chapters in the Bielsk Yizkor book discuss the Rabbis of Bielsk Podlaski:

• Kehila and Rabbinate, by Haim Rabin
• Disputes with Rabbis in Bielsk, by B. Shtern 
• The Rabbis' Deeds, by M. Alpert, on page 165
• My Father, haRav Ben-Da'at, by Sara Simner, on page 193
• The Life Story of R' Aryeh Leib Yellin, Excerpts from the book about "Yefeh 'Einayim" that was published in Jerusalem in the year 1975 [the text matches Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin, Author of "Yefeh 'Einayim" by Rivka Ziskind, published in Jerusalem in 1973], on page 217
  

Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin, born in Skidel, Lithuania in 1820, 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 Talmud. Known as Yefeh 'Einayim, the glosses were printed in the back of the Vilna edition of the Talmud. See the following for references:

• English, Hebrew, and Polish entries on Wikipedia. Use the drop down list to change languages. The Hebrew language entry is the most detailed. Let your browser translate it.
  
• Jewish Encyclopedia
  
• Report in the Hebrew daily newspaper Hayom (St. Petersburg) of Rabbi Yellin's death on April 12th 1886 which corresponds to 7th Nissan 5646. The report is on page two, left column, fifth paragraph.
• In the English introduction to A Commentary on the Palestinian [Jerusalem] Talmud, author Louis Ginzberg wrote the following about Rabbi Yellin's work in Yefeh 'Einayim:
  
• “The collection by Jellin of parallel passages to the Babylonian Talmud from the Palestinian Talmud and, the tannaitic and amoraic Midrashim is so amazing that in one’s admiration for the author’s mastery over the entire talmudic literature, one almost forgets his excellent explanations and interpretations of the Palestinian Talmud, which rank among the very best of their kind. The importance of Jellin’s notes, especially for the study of the relation of the two Talmuds to one another, has been recognized by “modern” scholars who often make use of them though many fail to acknowledge the source of their information.”
  
• The Ha'amek Davar of Naftali Zevi Yehuda Berlin
• Encyclopedia.com
  
• Beasts of Burden and One-Armed Clockmakers
• WorldCat entry: Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin, author of Yefeh 'Einayim, by Rivka Ziskind 
• Yellin, Aryeh Loeb. Yefeh 'Einayim in the Babylonian Talmud, Vilna Edition

Rabbi Ben Zion Sternfeld (1835 – 1917) was appointed Rabbi of Bielsk after the death of Rabbi Yellin.

• Author of Sha'arei Zion

 

Rabbi Moyshe Chaim is written about in Disputes with Rabbis in Bielsk, but the chronology of his Rabbinate is not given.

Rabbi Moshe Aharon Bendas (also spelled Ben Da'as, Benda’at, and Ben Daat) was born around 1865-1870. The last Rabbi of Bielsk, he was designated by his father-in-law, Rabbi Sternfeld, to be his successor. Haim Rabin wrote that “together with his flock, he was engulfed by the Holocaust and died the death of a martyr.” Pages of Testimony in Yad Vashem submitted by his son and grandson state that Rabbi Bendas was murdered at the Majdanek death camp. According to this site, which includes his photograph, he died in Treblinka. The entry for Bielsk in The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, says that he “perished [in the ghetto] protesting the lack of rations with a hunger strike.” Although there are several footnotes citing primary sources, there is no footnote in the encyclopedia for this statement about his death. The ghetto was established in August of 1941 and liquidated in November of 1942. For more about the ghetto see Eyewitness Holocaust testimony of life and death in the Bielsk Podlaski ghetto.

• Letter testifying to the year of birth of a native of Bielsk
• Letters written by Rabbi Bendas can be read in the online archives of the Center for Jewish History (CJH).
  

Rabbi Mordechai Goldin served concurrently with Rabbi Bendas. He was head of and teacher at the Beis-Yosef Yeshiva of Bielsk-Podlaski (a Rabbinical College). Letters and cards he wrote can be read in the online archives of the Center for Jewish History. Much of Rabbi Goldin's correspondence was addressed to Vaad HaYeshivos (or Hayeshivot) in Vilnius. His letters bear the seal of Yeshiva Beis-Yosef in Bielsk. That same seal appears on an appeal for funds that was republished in the Bielsk yizkor book in A Call for Help from the Bielsk Yeshiva on page 488.

Rabbi Yechezkel Levintal

Rabbi Yechezkel Levintal (also spelled Leventhal or Levinthal) was written about on page 172 of the yizkor book. He was known primarily as "the Dayan," meaning the judge, during the tenure of Rabbi Bendas. His responsibilities as the dayan would have involved presiding over various legal and religious matters.

Other Rabbis

Other Bielsk rabbis whose names appear on correspondence in the CJH archive are Rabbi Epstein, Rabbi L. Lewin, Rabbi Maier Rubin, and Rabbi Arye Ze’ev Lewin (Mashgiach of Yeshivas Beis Yosef of Bielsk-Podlask). 

 

Photographs of Bielsk

• View images of Bielsk Podlaski contributed by the JewishGen community
• The Ghetto Fighters House Archives has photographs of individuals, documents, and groups including the HeChaluts, Frayhayt, and Gordonia movements. From their web site, click “Search the Archive,” then enter your search terms (e.g., Bielsk, Bilsk, or Bielsk Podlaski).
• Pre-war photographs of Bielsk and other related materials can be found on the web site of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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.
• Yad Vashem holds an extensive collection of materials, many of which are available online.
• The Auschwitz searchable database allows you to search for records of those murdered at Auschwitz.
• 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.
• Jewish Records Indexing - Poland has a searchable database of vital records, including records from Bielsk Podlaski.
• JewishGen InfoFile - Polish Archives Holdings of Jewish Vital Records.
• Polish State Archives and the State Archives in Bialystok.
• Read chapters excerpted from Jewish Roots in Poland on the Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation.
• Writing to Poland JewishGen InfoFile.
• 1911 - 1912 Russian Business Directory
• 1928 Business Directory
• 1930 Business Directory
• 1936 Phone Directory
• 1937 Phone Directory

Books

• My Sack Full of Memories by Zwi Lewin (who was born in 1934 in Bielsk Podlaski). Published by Hybrid Publishers, Victoria, Australia, in 2019. A free sample of the book can be read here.
• History of the Jews in Poland and Russia by Simon Dubnow.
• Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin Author of “Yefeh ‘Einayim,”His Life and Literary Work, by Rivka Ziskind. Published by Rubin Mass Publisher, Jerusalem 1973. Hebrew with a five-page summary in English. Also see here, here, and here.
• Memories of Stormy Years, Bielsk 1898-1907, by Beryl Stern. Published by A Committee of the Workmen’s Circle, Newark New Jersey in 1953. Hebrew. This book has been digitized and can be read here.
• Jewish Bialystok and Surrounding in Eastern Poland, by Tomasz Wisniewski. Published by the Ipswich Press, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1998. Two pages of this book are specific to the history of and conditions in Bielsk Podlaski.

Documents

• Beitar letter, dated March 28, 1935, explaining the documents and information required for immigration to Palestine

Maps

• Hand drawn watercolor map by Libe and Bashe Kleszczelski
• Hand drawn map by Albert Gordon, born Hanach Gorzanski
• Hand drawn map by Libby Utzyski Elson
• The approximate boundaries of the ghetto and its gates can be seen on this Google map.
• A memorial plaque erected in Bielsk on the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto includes this map.
• Photo of map board on street
• Map of region dated 1613 showing Bielsk
• Current map
• 1899 Grodno Gubernia Map from Notes on Gubernia District Maps
• Resources for Grodno Gubernia on the JewishGen Belarus SIG

Related Materials

While not specific to Bielsk Podlaski these materials may provide a glimpse of the lives of our ancestors.

• The films below date to 1938 - 1939, providing a unique pre-Holocaust view. These links to YouTube provide free access to videos with low image quality. Higher quality restored copies of these films, in Yiddish with English subtitles, can be purchased from The National Center for Jewish Film for only $20 for personal use. Arrangements are also available for library use and film screenings.
  

o   Jewish Life In Bialystok (including footage of the great synagogue in Bialystok and a young girl eating a bialy)

o   A Day In Warsaw

o   Jewish Life In Kracow

o   Jewish Life In Lvov

o   Jewish Life In Vilna

• Other films about Jewish communities, the Holocaust, early Zionism, and Israeli statehood
  
• History of the Jews in Poland
  
• The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Poland
• 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.

• Philosophers, Fiddlers, and Fools is a wonderful and moving audio program containing music, stories and memories from a vanished world.

o   2001

o   2002

o   2003

o   2004

o   2005

o   2006

Search JewishGen Databases

• Search the JewishGen Family Finder for others researching Bielsk Podlaski. Also search the discussion group for references to family names and Bielsk Podlaski.

 

Compiled by Andrew Blumberg
Updated February 28, 2024
Copyright © 2002 - 2024 Andrew Blumberg

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