Are there any signs of Jewish life in Serock?

The answer to the question is both ”No” and ”Yes”. ”No” because currently there are no Jews living in Serock, whereas in 1921 the percentage of Jewish inhabitants was close to 50. ”Yes” for a number of reasons. On a beautiful, crisp spring day in 2004, when I and my wife visited the Shtetl where my Zeyde, Simcha Bunem Orenstein, was born circa 1892, she and I were the signs of Jewish life, even for just a fleetingly few hours. ”Yes”because there are records of births, marriages, and deaths in the civil registry offices (USC) shown above. And, ”Yes” because there are Jewish tombstones, albeit fragments, arranged in a makeshift memorial near the bank of the Narew River.

Ten years later, in 2014, however, the stones, were used to create a memorial at the site of the original Jewish cemetery with a permanent memorial to Serock's Jewish community.

If you are connected in any way to Serock (and its environs) and would like to send me photos (of family, town, or memorabilia) for this website, please use the following email address Howard Orenstein. Thank you.

Please check this page from time to time, as updates will appear.

Links

This link is for a pdf file originally published by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada (Toronto):

German Report from Poland During the First World War, translated by Henry Wellisch.

This link is for JRI-Poland's Serock Town page

This link is for Sefer Serock, a Yizkor book that can be found online at the New York Public library.

This link is for the English translation of ”Sefer Serock” (The Book of Serotsk), the Yizkor Book for Serock, Poland.

This link is for information on ”El Libro De Serock,” the Spanish version of "Sefer Serock."

This link is for family names of those from Serock who died in the Holocaust (from „Sefer Serock„ Yizkor book).

This link contains Serock Surnames (1875-1900) from databases at JRI-Poland.

This link contains Ellis Island arrivals from Serock Poland.

Israel Mida, a Canadian, in 2011, visited Serock, his father's hometown. His father was a Holocaust survivor who settled in Canada after WWII. Israel played a significant role in creating the English translation of "Sefer Serock." Click here to see and read about his visit to Serock.

Tsvika Plachinski, an Israeli citizen, visits Serock, the town in which many of his relatives lived before the Holocaust. Please view his photographs here.

This link is to Serock's Jewish Cemetery, from POLIN, The Museum of the History of Polish Jews (located in Warsaw, Poland)

The Jewish cemetery in Serock is located in Pultuska street. During World War II by Nazi order, the cemetery was devastated -- the tombstones (matzevot) were torn out and used in construction work, for laying down stairs over Narwia, among others. After the liberation, for many years, the matzevot were lying on the top of Barbarka hill. Later, Narew tourist resort was built in the cemetery lot. The resort was first used by craftsmen, later by members of the Polish Uniter Worker's Party, and finally bought off by the PKO Bank. It is likely that during the construction work some of the remaining tombstones were removed. Today, swings and grill alcoves are located there. In the 1980s the members of the Public Committee for the Restoration of Jewish Cemeteries and Cultural Monuments were still raising the issue of commemorating the place of burial of the Serock Jews. In 1985, in a letter to the governor of the city and g'mina Serock: "We are alarmed by the profanation of the tombstones. Those plates serve as stairs and terraces on Barbarka. They were pushed over a steep scarp and crashed onto a building standing below. Around there are already many broken fragments of the tombstones." Jewish organizations and the town authorities considered many ways to secure the surviving tombstones. They considered using the matzevot to erect a monument in the place of the old synagogue or moving the to the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. Finally, in the 1990s, a few dozen stelae were laid on a small slope in a quiet part of the park around Narew, about 100 meters north of the old cemetery. This simple lapidary consists of around thirty fragments of tombstones. Those matzevot were made primarily from sandstone that was not durable, and so the inscriptions and bas-reliefs have partially faded away. The cemetery is closed, but a visit can be made by appointment with the workers of: Narew Vacation-Training Center of PKO, S.A. Pultuska 132 Serock

Click this link for more photos.

This link is for a live webcam for the Town Square in Serock

This link is for burials in the Serock (Serotzk) section of Beth Moses Cemetery in Pinelawn, L.I., NY. If you have information about a deceased person in this database, please contact Howard Orenstein

Many thanks to Steve Lasky and The Museum of Family Historyfor providing this database.

This link is for the Serock entries. in the 1929 Polish Business Directory.

Although the proprietors' names and corresponding streets are provided, no specific addresses appear. I was able to locate the numerical street address of many of these businesses (and others) while searching the Polish State Archives. I created a Word file for these entries, which are in Polish. The owners' names are very understandable and you can easily translate the other Polish terms by using google translate. These new data include information from the 1930s, as well as before then.

You can browse this list of Serock businesses with, in some cases, specific addresses by clicking:

Business List, Serock

Cesha GLAZER (nee ORYL), native of Serock, in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald (2004, Australia), talks about her experiences during WWII:

”Walking among the Shadows ”

Cesha, in her book, "Cesha's Story," wrote about her life in Serock and Warsaw before the war, and about her experiences preceding her settling in Australia. To read about her book launch in 2012 in Sydney, please click here

Photos and descriptions from Ghetto Fighters House Archives: Click here.

A gallery of photos pertaining to Serock can be seen at Virtual Shtetl the Museum of the History of Polish Jews website.

Photos contributed by members of the former Jewish community of Serock Click Here:

An article, 'Serock, Poland Cemetery Project and My Trip to Poland' by Jeffrey Barnett, appeared in Chronicles - Volume 32-1 Spring 2015, Journal of the JewishGenealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia. Read Jef's article here.

===================================================================== These B and W photos, courtesy of Jeffrey Barnett, were taken in Serock, ca. 1916.The black rectangle on the current map of Serock shows the camera angle that was used in the photos

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Many thanks to Slawomir Jakubczak for the following:

Click here to view the photos provided by Slawomir Jakubczak.

More photos provided by Slawomir from his album: Album

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The US Library of Congress has published online images of the 1926 declarations of friendship between Poland and the US, "signed" by more than 5 million Polish people, the vast majority of them students of primary and secondary schools.

You can browse the signatures to see who attended schools in Serock:

Click here for the first of 5 pages, including Popowo-Koscielne (across the Narew River from Serock).

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