Włodawa

Jewish community

A view of the Great Synagogue dating back to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The existence of a Jewish community in Włodawa is first recorded in connection with the Lublin fair of 1531. By 1623 Włodawa had a representative in the Council of the Four Lands. The community's prosperity was due to the granting of a city charter in 1534. For much of the early modern period, a time when the Polish-speaking community of the region was predominately engaged in agriculture, Jews appear to have composed much of the population of the city, engaged in all forms of craft production and trade. The community was devastated by the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648,^[2] but afterwards re-established and rebuilt. By 1765 the town had 630 Jews. In 1693, the town had 197 dwellings, 89 owned by Jewish families. The census of 1773 records Jewish physicians, butchers, millers, barbers, goldsmiths, tailors, furriers, merchants, and carters, in addition to one Jew in each of the trades of coppersmith, cobbler, glazier, chandler, and wheelwright. There were also 8 schoolmasters, 2 educators, a cantor, a bass player and a cymbal player.^[3] There were 2,236 Jews in 1827 and 6,706 in 1907.

In the late 19th century Włodawa had a Jewish-owned steam-powered flour mill, tannery and soap factory. Of the 184 stores in the town, 177 were owned by Jews. Włodawa's first Zionist organization was formed in 1898, the town also had Bund, Agudath Israel and Poalei Zion organizations. There was a Beis Yaakov school for girls also.^[4]

Following Poland's return to independence, Włodawa became a seat of the Włodawa County. In 1939, before the onset of World War II, the population of Włodawa was 9,293.^[5] There was a garrison of heavy artillery regiment and the division of the field artillery in the town, used by the Pomorze and the Modlin armies in the defence of Poland against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Włodawa was bombed by the Luftwaffe on 3 September 1939.^[5]

Destruction during World War II

Small Synagogue, 18th century

Włodawa was over 70% Jewish before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland and the Holocaust.^[5] The city became part of the Nazi German Lublin District of the General Government following the invasion. Włodawa Ghetto was set up by the German administration in 1941.^[1] Jews from all neighbouring locations were sent there. The Ghetto was overcrowded and lacked food and medicine. Starvation and disease were common. Round ups for the Holocaust transports to the nearby Sobibór extermination camp took place in waves: 1,300 Jews in May 1942, 5,400 in October, 2,800 in November 1942, and 2,000 in April 1943, as well as the last 150 in May 1943. In June, all remaining Jewish children under the age of 10 were deported and gassed. During the ghetto liquidation action, at the end of October 1942 hundreds of Jews escaped to the surrounding forests. Włodawa Jews were mostly deported Sobibór, but some were executed locally at the German Arbeitslager workcamps such as the one at Adampol. Several Jews from Adampol and the Włodawa Ghetto were able to escape, and joined the Parczew partisans in the forests, fighting actively against the Nazis with Soviet assistance and weapons. The Jewish cemetery was demolished by the Germans who used the headstones as road building material, and turned the Synagogue into military storage.^[6]

On the road to Włodawa there is a memorial to the Jews from Włodawa who were killed at Adampol. No Jews are known to live in the town today, although the handsome, Baroque, Wlodawa Synagogue serves as major tourist attraction. A Włodawa landsmenschafte (society) was founded in America for survivors and descendants of Włodawa's Jewish Community and has members scattered throughout the US, Canada, Australia, England, Israel and elsewhere. London had a Wlodawa Synagogue (London).