Mere Traces Of Jewish Life Remain In Nidzica, Poland

Nidzica (formerly also German Neidenburg) is a small and rather quiet town in today’s Poland. It is the capital of Nidzica county in the region known as Masuria.

The city is located in the historical region of East Prussia, about 50 kilometers south of Allenstein (Olsztyn) and 140 kilometers south of Koenigsberg (Russian: Kaliningrad) and today has around 14,000 inhabitants. Since Nidzica was near the border to the Polish-ruled Mazovia, it was the target of Polish-Lithuanian attacks on several occasions and was sometimes in German, sometimes in Polish hands. The city has belonged to Poland since 1945. It’s hard to find a good restaurant or a nice cafeteria here these days.

Unfortunately, there are no reliable sources that could tell us exactly when the first Jews came to Nidzica to settle here. What is known: Since the 1860’s there has been a Jewish presence. In the early 1900s, you could meet Jewish merchants here who were selling their goods at annual fairs. When East Prussia was occupied by Napoleon’s troops in 1806, the Jews were also mentioned as residents of the city. In 1812, ten Jewish families are said to have lived here. At the end of the 19th century, 240 Jewish citizens lived in Nidzica, which made up 6% of the population. The city chronicle reports that in 1890 the city had 4,221 inhabitants, 3,506 of whom were Protestant, 561 Catholics and 154 Jews.

When the German Empire lost the First World War, the residents, together with the entire Neidenburg district, were called upon to decide between belonging to East Prussia or Poland by means of a referendum in the Olsztyn voting area. On July 11, 1920, 3,156 residents voted to remain in East Prussia and 17 to join Poland. Due to the miserable food supply, the anti-Semitic mood increased by leaps and bounds in the search for culprits in the German Reich, and hatred of Jews flared up again in society and politics. As early as 1923, Jewish shops in Nidzica were looted.

The situation of the Jews deteriorated further after 1933. After the National Socialists won the elections, leaflets were distributed in Nidzica calling on the Masurians to boycott all Jewish shops. During the “Reichspogromnacht” – Kristallnacht – on November 9, 1938, the synagogue was destroyed and two Jewish residents were murdered. Instead of the synagogue, the city built the “Grenzlandmuseum”. After these events, most of the Jews left the city and emigrated. In May 1939 only 23 Jews lived in the city.