When World War II began on September 1, 1939, my great grandmother Sheindl Wierzbowicz, her daughter, Paiche (pronounced pie-che), Paiche’s husband Shimon Rosenbaum, their 10 year old son, David,  as well Sheindl’s teenage daughter, Hinde, all lived in Zambrow, Poland. By January, 1943, they had all been murdered. What was their experience–the experience of Zambrow’s Jews–during those years? No written correspondence from my Zambrow family exists. And so, relying on available sources–the Zambrow Yizkor book, Yizkor books of nearby communities, memoirs of survivors from Zambrow and nearby towns, the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos (hereinafter USHMM), an invaluable resource published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as Internet sources such as Virtual Shtetl–I will attempt to create a coherent narrative of what Jewish life was like in Zambrow from the beginning of the war until the community met its end in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in January, 1943.

I divide my account into four distinct periods: 1) initial German occupation; 2) Soviet occupation; 3) German reoccupation, and 4) final “liquidation.”

This post focuses on September, 1939, when Zambrow first came under Nazi occupation.

Part 1: The Initial German Occupation: September, 1939

Zambrow is located in the Northeastern region of Poland, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Warsaw.

When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, marking the beginning of World War II, the town was home to about 4000 Jews and an equal number of non Jews. Though located about 300 miles from the German border, Zambrow felt the effects of the invasion on the war’s first day. German war planes bombed the town, killing and injuring any number of people. (Zambrow Virtual Shtetl page.) As German troops advanced through Poland, refugees began fleeing eastward, into Zambrow and surrounding towns. Zambrow absorbed many Jews from the town of Ostrow  Mazowiecka, located about 23 miles (37 kilometers) southwest of Zambrow (Ostrow Mazowiecka Yizkor Book, page 508).

By September 7 (according to the Ostrow Mazowiecka Yizkor Book) or September 10 (according to Virtual Shtetl), German troops had entered Ostrow Mazowiecka.

By September 10, Zambrow came under Nazi occupation following fierce fighting between Germans and Polish forces in Zambrow and the nearby city and regional capital of Lomza. In what became known as the Battle of Lomza, the Poles put up heavy resistance, but after suffering heavy losses from units of the German 10th Panzer Division, assisting the Nazi motorized division, Polish forces surrendered on September 10. (https://history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-20/CMH_Pub_104-20.pdf)

The fighting in Zambrow was captured in a grainy image published in an unidentified American newspaper:

The fighting in and around Zambrow resulted in the destruction of the Polish 18th Infantry Division. Thousands of Polish soldiers were taken captive and held in Zambrow. In the late 19th Century, the Russians had built military barracks in Zambrow, and the Germans established a makeshift prisoner of war camp there, holding some  4,000 to 5,000 Polish prisoners of war. (The USHMM puts the number at 1,200.) Among them were Jews serving in the Polish army.

On the night September 13, the Germans warned that any prisoner who moved would be shot. During the night, some panicked horses entered the camp and, to avoid being trampled, the prisoners got out of the way. German sentries then opened fire, and, for about 10 minutes, sprayed the camp with machine-gun and small-arms fire, killing some 250 people. (Krakowski, The Fate of Jewish Prisoners of War in the September 1939 Campaign, https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206215.pdf,  Zambrow Massacre, http://jspayne.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=Zambr%C3%B3w_massacre.)

The Jewish civilian population also suffered from German atrocities. German Army soldiers “daily robbed Jewish stores and homes” (USHMM). The Wehrmacht also murdered, apparently at random, around 50 Jews. (USHMM, Virtual Shtetl.) Some residents of Zambrow were deported west into Germany for forced labor. (Zambrow Yizkor Book, p. 357.) These acts were typical of German forces in the area. In Ostrow Mazowiecka, the Germans killed 15 Jews the first day of their occupation and 300 the following day, in addition to destroying the interior of the synagogue and forcing Jews into humiliating labor. “The Nazis,” the Ostrow Mazowiecka Yizkor Book reports, “went around at night to houses robbing, beating up Jews and causing all sorts of trouble” (p. 503).

In the Zambrow Yizkor Book, Yitzhak Golombek provides a comprehensive account of Zambrow during the war years. At the beginning of the war, he was serving in the Polish army. After his army unit was destroyed, he returned to Zambrow. He recounts: “It was difficult to recognize the shtetl. The side, in the direction of Lomza, and the left wing of the marketplace lay in ruins, gutted by fire. [Also] the Red Bet HaMedrash [house of study] went up in smoke, the house of the Yeshiva, the White Bet HaMedrash, and all the surrounding houses” (p. 73).