According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, the first mention of Jews from Sierpc (Yiddish: Sheps) was in 1739. The Sierpc Jews earned their living through trade or craft. The majority of them faced poverty, though. Later, many local Jews received financial aid from their relatives living in the US. Nonetheless, the presence of the Jewish community contributed to the economic prosperity of Sierpc. Fairs organised by the Jews attracted merchants from faraway places such as Lvov or Prague.

In 1800 Sierpc was inhabited by 649 Jews. They accounted for 67% of the town’s population. While the Jewish community was gradually growing, their percentage in the overall population was declining. The growth in the number of Jews was stimulated, among others, by expulsion of the Jewish people from the countryside started in 1816. In 1856, Sierpc was inhabited by 2,604 Jews (56%), in 1897 – 2,935 (42%), in 1921 – 2,861 (42.5%) and in 1938 – by as few as 307 Jews (30.5%). A noticeable decline in the beginning of the 20th century was largely caused by emigration to the States that was common at those times. It is estimated that over forty thousand Jews left the area of Płock in 1912 only.

The tragedy of Jews in the shtetl of Sierpc occurred right after the outbreak of the WWII. On the 8th November, 1939, the Nazis expelled nearly seventy five per cent of the Sierpc Jews. Michał Grynberg writes in his book "Jews in the Sierpc district": “whipped and pushed with rifle butts, Jews were forced to line up and walk to a railway station (...).Sounds of the orchestra were interspersed with cry and yell of women who could not keep up and were cruelly battered by the Nazi police (..…) At ten o’clock, the Jews were pushed to freight cars and transported to Poniechowko. There, they were forced out and rushed off to Nowy Dwór on foot.”

Nowy Dwór was just a stop-over on their way to extermination. The following day they were exiled from Nowy Dwór. The majority found their way to Warsaw. Nearly five hundred Jews ‘useful’ for the Third Reich economy remained in Sierpc.

The Sierpc ghetto was set up in the spring of 1940, wedged between Kasztelanska, Górna and Kilińskiego Streets. Living conditions were abysmal. It is how J. Przybyszewski recollects those times in the book "Memories of the Sierpc inhabitants 1900 - 1950": "old Jews could hardly stand inhumane conditions. They died from exhaustion and the Nazis ordered to cover their bodies with soil." The Sierpc ghetto was liquidated on the 6th January 1942. During deportation some Jews were killed while others were transported to Strzegowo and further to Auschwitz and Treblinka camps.

The Nazis demolished the Sierpc synagogue and Jewish cemetery at Władysława Jagiełło Street. Matzevot were used to build pavements in the town. After the war the cemetery was restored thanks to holocaust survivor Lech Gongoła living in Sierpc, rabbi Eliakim Schlesinger from London, the chairman of Committee for Protection and Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe and a great great-grandchild of a rabbi from Sierpc as well as to the local authorities. The cemetery was cleaned and fenced. Recovered matzevas cut into pavement slabs were placed back in the cemetery. The wooden preburial house built in 1928 is unique in Poland. Hebrew inscriptions have survived on its walls. They were translated thanks to the help of Jan Jagielski from the Jewish Historical Institute. Here is an excerpt: "May this place bring comfort to those who grieve over Zion and Jerusalem."

On the 1 September 1999, the restored cemetery was symbolically re-opened. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the local authorities and Jewish institutions: rabbi Eliakim Schlesinger, Jonah Booksterin, the director of the Lauder Foundation in Poland and Michał Semęt from the Jewish Community.

Text: K. Bielawski
Photos: Robert Lipowski, Sylwia Podkowska, Iza Obałek
Translation: Małgorzata Ławer
Bibliography:
Encyclopaedia Judaica
"Społeczność żydowska Mazowsza w XIX - XX wieku" by Janusz Szczepański
We also recommend ”The Jewish Community in Sierpc over the centuries”

We have learned from our correspondents that the preburial house is very quickly deteriorating. Only one letter in the Hebrew inscriptions has survived. The preburial house in the Jewish cemetery in Sierpc.