THE HOLOCAUST IN KOCK

The Holocaust completely destroyed the Jewish community in Kock. By 1937, roughly half of the town's population were Jewish (2,213 Jewish residents out of 4,463 total). On September 9, 1939, aerial bombings were carried out by the Nazis, which resulted in the death of the last tzaddik of Kock, Abram Josef Morgensztern ​, and his family.

Upon the surrender of General Kleeberg on October 6, 1939, the Nazis occupied the town. In November, they burned down the synagogue. Shortly after the Germans entered Kock, the Jewish population was forced to wear the Star of David sign on their clothes.

With the Nazi's Annexation Decree in October 1939, Kock became part of the Nazi's Generalgouvernement ​. Initial plans made by the Nazis designated the region as a client state and borderland that would serve as a buffer between adjacent countries and as a potential bargaining tool with opposing governments. As the Nazi expansion and destruction continued, plans were revised to include German colonization of the area after the eradication the existing non-German populations.

People were persecuted by the Nazis for their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, political beliefs, disability, gender, and sexual orientation; the Nazis used these differences in Poland's diverse population to sow division and create distrust, and to supplement Hiwi forces, either through persuasion or through forced labor, for performing much of the "dirty work" associated with the operation of their genocidal regime. All of these Hiwis and other non-ethnic-German collaborators were ultimately intended for eradication by the Nazi regime after completion of their assignments. While the Nazis did not achieve these goals by their defeat at the end of World War II, the Nazis and their collaborators had murdered roughly 11 million people by the end of the war, including more than 6 million Jews and more than 1.8 million Poles.

Kock became part of the Lublin Administrative District and the Radzyń Podlaski Kreis (County)​, administered by the Nazi regime beginning near the end of October 1939. The first ghetto was established in Puławy (October 1939), but a larger effort to concentrate Jews came in October and November of 1939, when the District Captain of Radzyń Podlaski, Hennig von Winterfeld, designated Ostrów Lubelski and Kock as Judenreservate (Jewish reservations) for the District’s 32,430 Jews.

In 1940, a group of approximately 1,200-3,000 Jews from Nasielsk, Serock, Suwałki, and other communities were resettled to Kock. Additional transports and refugees came from Lubartów and Firlej. By early December 1939, roughly 8,000 Jews were held in the ghetto. At the end of 1940, the Germans established a ghetto located at ul. Żydowska:

Jewish families in the ghetto were forced to live in cramped conditions with other ghetto inmates, often multiple families to a single house, contributing to the rapid spread of typhus. Consequently, local villagers banned Jews in Kock from seeking food or finding work in their localities for fear of contracting typhus.

At the beginning of 1940, the Germans established a Judenrat headed by Saperstein​, a refugee from Poznań. In 1941, a branch of the Jewish Social Self-Help was established. Its members included: Szloma Topel ​, Moszek Oberklajd ​, and Lejb Rubinsztein ​. The Jewish Social Self-Help established a community kitchen to feed impoverished Jews and new arrivals from other areas in August 1940. In August 1941, the kitchen was forced to close because it did not have enough money to purchase more food.

In the winter of 1941-1942, SS men from Radzyń Podlaski arrived and demanded that all Jews hand over their furs. The cobbler Abram Wodyński was killed during the SS's search for fur coats. Many Jews were then conscripted for forced labor in surrounding areas, to which they were forced to march on foot. Around May 1942, 158 Jews from Kock were among 407 inmates of a labor camp established in Ossowa.

During May and June of 1942, there were several deportation actions in surrounding communities; Jewish homes in Kock were frequently searched for fugitives of nearby deportation actions. During one of the searches in May 1942, 27 Jews were shot and killed. In August 1942, Kock was designated as one of several collection ghettos for Jews being deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. the Judenrat was forced to select 100 families who were deported to Parczew and then to Treblinka. Another deportation of 1,700 people took place on September 10, 1942, during which 10 Jews were shot.

On September 26, 1942, the Commander of the 2^nd platoon of the German 101^st Reserve Police Battalion ordered the execution of 200 people in retaliation for the murder of one of his officers in Talczyn. After the execution of 78-81 Polish Christians, he ordered the remaining quota to be filled with Jews from the Kock ghetto. Between 161 to 189 Jews were rounded up and shot later that day. Hundreds of Jews from the Kock ghetto were deported to Łuków beginning on October 8, 1942. The remaining inhabitants of the fragmentary ghetto were forced to work organizing and sorting Jewish property.

After the September 1942 murders and October 1942 deportations, it is believed that roughly 400-500 Jews remained in Kock, most of whom had been transported there from other areas or who had arrived through other means as refugees.

On November 6, 1942, the liquidation of the Kock ghetto began. Some 120-500 Jewish inmates were forced to march to the Łuków ghetto, and were later transported to the Treblinka extermination camp in the Łuków deportations of October 26-27 and November 7-10 of 1942. Reportedly because so many Jews attempted to escape during the march to Łuków, Sapterstein ​, head of the Judenrat, was shot and killed. About 200 of Kock's Jews were sent to a labor camp established at a sawmill in Poizdów. Only a few Jews remained in the Kock ghetto after November 1942 to sort Jewish belongings. They were later sent to Parczew to sort Jewish belongings remaining after deportations there, and were executed in January 1943. On November 30, 1942 or 1943, 200 laborers at the Poizdów sawmill were executed.

On July 21, 1944, the remaining residents of Kock were liberated from the Nazis by the 27^th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Polish Home Army. Unfortunately, these soldiers were later betrayed by the NKVD. Many were sent to gulags within the Soviet Union; only a few members were able to join the Red Army or the Soviet-backed Polish People's Army.

Less than 30 Jews from Kock were known to have survived the Holocaust. Many of the survivors did so through help from Polish neighbors and friends. Apolonia Świątek-Machczyńska obtained false identity papers for 11 Jews from Kock and arranged their transfer to her in-laws' house in Warsaw. Rywka Goldfinger survived from this group and lived in Israel after the war. Later, Machczyńska helped Jews hiding in the forest near her house. However, her activities were reported by a neighbor, and she was subsequently murdered by the Nazis. Of those hiding in the forest, only Icek Zakalik (the owner of the mill supplying electricity to Kock) survived. The Kazanecki family in Wola Skromowska also sheltered Jacob Grzebien​, Arye Goldman​, and Israel Rozenblatt​. At least 6 more Jews were assisted by local villagers.

In the years 1944–1946, in Kock and the surrounding area, there were attacks on Jews trying to move back home, regain their property, and/or obtain information on the whereabouts of friends and family. A notable incident that occurred near Kock was the death of Chaia Liss née Rybarczuk ​, hidden in Wola Skromowska, who was killed while trying to retrieve possessions she had hidden with a neighbor in July 1944.

In 1948, a Polish court sentenced 4 former members of the 101^st Reserve Police Battalion for participating in executions near Kock. The battalion's commander, Major Wilhelm Trapp, was sentenced to death.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Search the Yad Vashem Archives for Victims of the Holocaust.

Search the Arolsen Archives for Topics or Names.

See the Yizkhor Book for the Jewish Community in Kock (Sefer Kotsk), parts translated to English hosted by JewishGen ​, or the entire book in Yiddish and Hebrew through Archive.org ​.

A list of Jewish residents of Kock in 1939 has been compiled by Mr. Dariusz Magier of the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Siedlce. The file is a pdf that can be viewed and downloaded from Academia.org ​.