The Jewish community in Orla used to be one of the oldest and most powerful in Eastern Poland. Jews started to settle in the Podlasie region at the end of XVI century. They came mainly from the Wielkopolska region and central Poland during a wide-scale settlement process. Jewish people inhabited a few then-existed Podlasie’s cities and towns, becoming a driving force in their development. In spite of the lack of archival confirmation it can be assumed that the first Jews settled in Orla in the XVI century. The town was a private property and its owners, the Bohatynowicz family, the Tęczyński family and since 1585 until the end of the XVIII century the Radziwiłł family, one of the most influential in Poland, were interested in the inflow of Jews. In 1616 there were 17 houses in Orla owned by Jewish people. In 1618 Krzysztof Radziwiłł granted a privilege, in which he allowed to settle in the town people of all status:   “Christians of all confessions as well as Jewish merchants, craftsmen, innkeepers, hucksters”. This privilege was confirmed in a 1634 document which granted town rights for Orla.

Thanks to these legal conditions, fast development of the region and the growing significance of Orla in the politics of the powerful Radziwiłł family, the number of Jews in the town grew quickly. During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) some German Jews came and settled in Orla as they found it a much safer place to live and conduct business. For the next 300 years Jews were a very important part of Orla residents and for most of this period there were more Jews than Christians living in the town. In 1655 there were 90 Jewish houses in Orla and consequently around 540 Jews lived there.

Orla’s development was stopped for some time by the so called “Swedish Deluge”, Polish-Swedish war (1655-1660), which was especially harmful to the Podlasie region. As a result the amount of Jewish houses decreased to 62. In 1716 just 102 Jews lived in Orla. The 1714 document from Pinkas of the Jewish community of nearby Tykocin confirmed a difficult financial situation of Orla’s Jewish community. Representatives of the town asked for a tax reduction, claiming that: “there is a terrible havoc in our country and we have lost the possibility for earning money”.

The second part of the XVIII century was a much better period for Orla’s Jews. In 1765 the Jewish population grew to 1358 members and was one of the biggest in the Podlasie region. Traditionally, the most important occupation of Orla’s Jews was trade, especially of agricultural products. Jews were famous for being good merchants and middle men so thanks to them trade exchanges in Orla and the region was growing. Jews were also a driving force of Wedneday’s trade market in the town. They traded also with other regions of Poland. According to statistics from 1776 merchants from Orla transported through a customs chambers more commodities than any other Podlasie town, except Tykocin. Orla’s Jews had also direct business ties with foreign cities such as Frankfurt (Oder) and  Königsberg. In the XVII century Jews of Orla owned their own merchant vessel, which was moored in Mielnik on the Bug river, about 45 kilometers from the town.

The second most important Jewish occupation was craftsmanship. We know from archival sources that among Jewish craftsmen were: bakers, furriers, tanners, tailors, barbers and goldsmiths. Also, guilds of butchers and tailors functioned in Orla. At the end of the XVIII century there were 58 craftsman in Orla, which consisted of 90 per cent of all craftsman in the town. Jews did not have any competitors and this situation lasted for the next 150 years. In the last quarter of theXVIII century the biggest number of Jewish craftsmen worked in the alcohol trade and industry. Jews were the owners or leaseholders of all the inns and taverns in Orla and in the nearby villages. In 1772 in the Orla region there were as many as 10 Jewish owned inns. Interestingly, in 1664 the villages surrounding  Orla received a rare privilege, which forbad Jews from settling in the countryside, except if they worked as innkeepers.

In 1799, four years after Poland lost its independence, the number of Jews in Orla reduced to just 102, which consisted of 20.9 per cent of the town’s residents. It was probably due to a fire in the town in 1775 as 7 years earlier there had been 121 Jewish houses. In the future, several fires would affect Orla, where almost all buildings were wooden. Awareness of this danger can be seen in the already mentioned 1634 privilege, in which Krzysztof Radziwiłł obliged Jews and Christians living in the town to possess fire extinguisher equipment.

Since the beginning of the XIX century the population of Orla started growing quickly. In 1815 1296 Jews and 519 Christians lived in the town. Until 1942 there would be at least 60-70 per cent Jewish people among the whole Orla population. In 1847 Orla’s Synagogical District numbered 4436 members. It should be noted, however, that in the first part of the XIX century the town of Bielsk was also a part of this district. The significance of Bielsk as a regional Jewish centre was growing in this time. Bielsk was the capital of this part of Podlasie region and consequently more and more Jews settled there. Nevertheless, Jews of Orla felt theirs was a more important Jewish town than Bielsk because of its longer tradition and beautiful brick synagogue (all Bielsk synagogues were wooden).

The Jewish population in Orla was continually growing. In 1878 in the town 1812 of 2351 people were Jews (77 per cent). In 1897, 2310 people of the total 3044 residents were Jews (75 per cent). The population was growing even in spite of a large migration to bigger cities, mainly fast growing Białystok. Jews from Orla settled also in other cities, including Warsaw and St. Petersburg. Since the second part of the XIX century Orla’s Jews started to emigrate to other countries, mainly to the United States and Palestine.

Relations between Christians and Jews living in Orla were generally amicable. Both communities lived next to each other in their common town and needed each other. But at the same time each of the two communities created its own world. Interestingly, in some ceremonial moments for Christians, Jews also took part. A good example was a visit of the Grodno-Brest Orthodox bishop to Orla in 1907. In the town suburbs he was welcomed by a delegation of the Jewish community and their representative delivered a welcome speech. The same situation was repeated in 1937, when Orla was visited by another bishop.

Due to the 1st World War and 1915 forces exile of Orthodox Christians, ordered by Russian authorities (co called bieżeństwo), the population of Orla decreased twice. According to the 1921 census, the first in the independent Poland, just 1519 people lived in the town, of which 1167 (76 per cent) were Jewish. In the 20s and 30s Orla was a typical Jewish shtetl in Eastern Poland. Jews lived mainly in the town centre, on the streets near the synagogue and the market, where small, wooden shops were located. They practically monopolized all services. Jews worked as: doctor (H. Werbołownik), dentist (Lacki), chemist (H. Rabinowitz), barber (J. Feltregier), tailors (A. Bielecki, M. Joła, I. Mikłacka), bakers (M. Cymbał, A. Dyrdak, Ch. Izbucki, J. Mełamed), shoemakers (J. Bertman, Sz. Bertman, M. Doliński, J. Jola, M. Ryszelewski, Z. Szumacher, D. Tofiłowski), and tanners (S. Mastbaum, S. Olszanicki, J. i Sz. Topolańscy). Next to Kasa Stefczyka bank operated also a Jewish People’s Bank. The most important employer in Orla were the Wajnsztejn brothers, who owned a big tilery, where up to 100 people worked, mainly Christians. A lot of Orla’s Jews worked as trade middlemen, buying food products and selling industrial goods. The town and nearby villages was ruled by a specific Christians-Jewish symbiosis. 

On the Sabbath commercial life in Orla came to a stop – all shops (except one owned by a Christian merchant) were closed. Non-Jewish residents, especially young people, could earn some money by helping their Jewish neighbors during the Sabbath (like heating or feeding their animals, etc.). Many Christians were able to speak the Yiddish language. A symbol of intercultural exchange was the fact that Jewish names were given also to Christian children (eg. Abraham, Daniel, Samuel). Both communities lived side by side without serious conflicts. When in the 30s anti-Jewish sentiments were increasing in other parts of Poland, Christian-Jewish relations in Orla remained unaffected.

According to a 1932 local census, conducted by an Orla Orthodox priest, Włodzimierz Wiszniewski, 1389 Jews, 680 Orthodox Christians and 153 Catholics lived in the town. In spite of a high birthrate, many Jews, especially from poor families, decided to emigrate to seek a better life. Their destinations were mainly the United States and Palestine and after the US government limited the number of emigrants, Orla’s Jews left for South Africa, South America and Western Europe.

18 May 1938 was one of the most tragic days in Orla’s long history.  A fire broke out in a Jewish house in the town centre, close to the synagogue. In a short time a big part of the wooden town was destroyed. In total 550 buildings, including 220 Jewish houses and 28 Christian houses burned down. Mainly the Jewish part of Orla was ruined by the great fire. Christian neighbors lent a helping hand: many Jewish families who lost their houses, lived in Christian houses for up to a few months. Poland’s state institutions and American Jewish organizations offered financial help for Orla’s residents and by September 1939 burned houses were rebuilt.

When the 2nd World War started Orla was under Soviet occupation (from 17 September 1939 until 22 June 1941). Political and economic freedoms were strictly limited. The tilery was nationalized and the Wajnsztein family together with many other of Orla’s Christian and Jewish families were deported to Siberia. During this time a few Christian-Jewish couples were married, a sign that the two communities were particularly close to each other. Directly after 1939 the Jewish community of Orla increased from around 1450 people to more than 2000, as a consequence of Jewish migration from other parts of Poland, which were under German occupation. Due to their fear of Germans, Jews escaped from western and central parts of the country and found shelter with relatives or friends in Orla.

The outbreak of German-Soviet war was the beginning of the end of four centuries of Jewish presence in Orla. Directly after the town was occupied by Germans, they introduced  repressions against its Jewish residents. Simche Bursztajn, a Jewish witness, who survived the war, testified in 1946: “[Germans] issued following decrees: 1) all Jews are obliged to wear sign of shame 2) all women and men, even those who are not able to work, have to work hard, eg. building roads. After three weeks of German occupation a new Nazi commissioner, who was well-known for his anti-Semitism, was sent to the town. This commissioner started his office from the new persecutions against the Jews and revisions in Jewish houses during which he took everything he liked (eg. money, jewelry etc.)”. Germans also imposed a contribution on Orla’s Jews – they were obliged to collect a half kilogram of gold and three kilograms of silver. Germans created a Judenrat, a Jewish Council, which was a representative structure of the whole Jewish community.

Probably around March-April 1942 in the centre of Orla, Germans organized a ghetto, where all Jews from the town and nearby villages were forcebly relocated. At the same time Christians living in the area of the town were expelled. The ghetto was surrounded by a wooden fence and barbed wire. Jews gathered in this “camp” had to live in extremely difficult conditions.

On 4 November 1942 the ghetto in Orla was liquidated. More than 1500 Jews, headed by the last rabbi of Orla, Eli Halpern, were forced on a 10 kilometre march to Bielsk Podlaski rail station. From the station Jews were taken to Treblinka extermination camp, where all of them were murdered. A small group of Orla’s craftsman were transported to the Białystok ghetto, where they lost their lives or were also annihilated in the Treblinka camp a few months later. Only around 20 Jews of Orla survived the Holocaust, mainly those who were deported to Siberia or were taken to the Soviet army in 1940. After 1945 practically all Jewish survivors emigrated from Poland. The Jewish community of Orla, which co-founded and thrived in the town for so many centuries, ceased to exist.

Wojciech Konończuk