Kowal Shtetl

ADJCP representatives with Kowal Mayor Eugeniusz Gołębowski, representatives of the Ari Ari Foundation, and other Kowal residents. Photo source: Marysia Galbraith

Overview

History of Kowal’s Jewish Community

Sources: Virtual Shtetl and Pinkas Hakehillot Polin: Kowal

Kowal’s history goes back to at least 1185, when a trade village was established next to a fortified settlement on Rakutowski Lake. Records from 1531 documented the presence of Jews in Kowal; in subsequent decades the Jewish community received permission to build a wooden Beit Midrash and purchased land for a cemetery. The town’s Jewish population declined in the 1600s, a result of the Polish-Swedish War, epidemics and riots against the Jews who were blamed for siding with the Swedes. By 1820, the Jewish community had grown again to 900 residents, and then to 1,500 individuals by the end of the 19th Century. Throughout the 1800s and first part of the 1900s, Jewish residents of Kowal played an important part in local economic life, and were involved in municipal politics. In 1939, there were 1,520 Jews in Kowal, making up about a quarter of the population. The number of Jews living in Kowal systematically declined from there, beginning with the looting of Jewish businesses and destruction of Jewish homes, forced labor campaigns, deportations to other towns, the Warsaw and Lodz Ghettos, and the Chelmno extermination camp. READ MORE from Virtual Shtetl and READ MORE from Pinkas Hakehillot Polin: Kowal

Resources