One of my tasks in preparing to visit Poland is to learn the location of various places there. Having studied the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, I know that the borders of Poland changed over the years. In fact, when my Zeidy was born in Zambrow in 1900, Poland was not even a country. Zambrow and environs were ruled by the Russians. According to the Zambrow Yizkor book, in 1882, the Russians made Zambrow a military center by building barracks and garrisoning soldiers there.

Zambrow is located 73 miles northwest of Warsaw, 15 miles southeast of Lomza, and 40 miles southeast of Bialystok.  Today it is located in northeastern Poland.

Here is a map of how Poland appeared from 1795 until the end of the First World War.

From this map, it appears that Zambrow (southwest of Lomza) was located at the eastern edge of the area known as the “Duchy of Warsaw,” an area under Russian control but not part of Russia proper. This is the reason that many Jews in Zambrow learned Russian and went to Russian language schools. There were two chief Rabbis in the town, one of which was the Russian officially approved rabbi (referred to the Rav Me’ta’am) as well as the rabbi who was considered the head of the community.

After World War I and the Versailles Conference of 1919 that established Poland as an independent country, Zambrow was shifted toward the center of Poland. Here is a map that shows Poland during the interwar period:

In August, 1939, the Nazis and the Soviet Union concluded the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty that divided Poland between the two countries. Zambrow was located on the western edge of the Soviet side. The Nazis actually came in to Zambrow for a week or two at the beginning of their invasion of Poland in September, 1939, but then withdrew to the line established by the treaty. Here is the best map I can find that shows how Poland was divided during this time:

It appears that the dividing line between the German and Soviet zones was at the city of Ostrow Mazowiecka, located about 20 miles southwest of Zambrow.

Finally, here is a map of Poland today. As you can tell, the borders of Poland today got shifted westward, as Germany lost territory after World War II and the Soviets reclaimed land that they lost after World War I. Zambrow is too small of a town to be on the map, so I have penciled in the location of Zambrow as well as the Death Camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

As you can see, Zambrow is again located in northeastern Poland. It is frightening to see how close Zambrow was to the Treblinka Death Camp.

The purpose of this little geography lesson is to help myself get spatially oriented. As I prepare to leave for Poland in two days, I now have mental map of where my Zaidy’s hometown was when he was born, when he left Poland in 1920, when my relatives were killed in 1943, and now. Does this exercise prepare me for what I will actually see? Probably not.