Błaszki (; german: Schwarzau) is a town in

Sieradz County __NOTOC__ Sieradz County ( pl, powiat sieradzki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms ...

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship (also known as Lodz Province, or by its Polish name ''Województwo łódzkie'' ) is a province- voivodeship in central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Łódź Voivodeship (1975–1999) and the Sier ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, with 1,992 inhabitants as of December 2021.

History

Błaszki was founded in the 14th century.

Jewish community

1700s to Holocaust

The first historical mention of Jewish residents dates back to 1717. In the 1860s, Jewish residents accounted for 60% of the total population. Until the 1920s an estimated 400 Jewish families and 215 Christian families resided in Blaszki. The Jewish community was frequently targeted by anti-Semitic attacks. Additionally, they were the victims of organized anti-Jewish boycotts which arranged to open a Christian shop next door or directly across from every Jewish shop. The

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

brought an end to this community. In september 1939, immediately after the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

arrested ten of the most important members of the community and executed them On December 20th 1939, the Błaszki Jews were transported to Łosice, Sarnaki and Sokołowo.

Legacy

In 1932 a local Zionist activist and writer , published ''Fun alṭn ḳloysṭer'' (''From The Old Monastery'', in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

), a book of tales and legends about Błaszki and the then

Kalisz County __NOTOC__ Kalisz County ( pl, powiat kaliski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local governme ...

Notable people

* Isaac Meir Kanal (Rabbi of Blaszki 1907-1922) * Chaim Pinchas Lubinsky * Phillip Blashki

References

External links

Official website

Błaszki
in the 1880

Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic Countries ( pl, Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich) is a monumental Polish gazetteer, published 1880–1902 in Warsaw Warsaw ( p ...

Błaszki
in the 1900 Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland
Jewish community of Błaszki
on

Virtual Shtetl The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland. History The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June ...

Online text of ''Von Dem Alten Kloster''
Cities and towns in Łódź Voivodeship Sieradz County Kalisz Governorate Poznań Voivodeship (1921–1939) {{Sieradz-geo-stub