Alternate names: Płock [Pol], Plotzk [Yid, Rus], Плоцк [Rus], פּלאצק [Yid], Plozk [Ger], Schröttersburg [Ger, 1941-45], Plotsk. 52°33' N, 19°42' E, 60 miles WNW of Warszawa. Gubernia capital, 1807-1917. 1900 Jewish population: 7,480.
Yizkors: Plotsk; bletlekh geshikhte fun idishen lebn in der alter heym [Plock; paginas de historia de...] (Buenos Aires, 1945); Plotsk; toldot kehila atikat yomin be-Polin (Tel Aviv, 1967); Yidn in Plotsk (New York, 1960); Zydzi Ploccy Dzieji I martyrologia˙1939-1945 (Plock Poland, 1993); Pinkas ha-kehilot; entsiklopediya shel ha-yishuvim le-min hivasdam ve-ad le-aher shoat milhemet ha-olam ha-sheniya: Poland vol. 4: Warsaw and its region (Jerusalem, 1989). This city in central Poland on the Vistula river with 131,011 inhabitantsin the Masovian Voivodeship since 1999 and previously the capital of the Płock Voivodeship (1975-1998) and powiat capital. [June 2009]
- BOOK: http://www.zchor.org/INDPLOCK.HTM
- BOOK: Independent Order Brith Abraham. Henry Clay Lodge No. 15 (New York, N.Y.) Records, 1890-1947. Description: 1 linear ft. Notes: Jewish immigrants from Plock, Poland founded Landsmanshaft in 1888, which was a branch of Jewish fraternal order. It incorporated the Boris Schatz Benevolent Society in 1932 when it appeared the Independent Order Brith Abraham would dissolve. ...YIVO collections are in Yiddish, Russian, Polish, English, Hebrew, and other European and non-European languages. Location: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, NY. Control No.: NXYH89-A666 [December 2000]
- BOOK: They Lived Among Us: Polish Judaica, a travel brochure: Arline Sachs, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with ames only; sometimes a description of famous people who lived there, but no page number.)
- BOOK: Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Jewish Heritage Travel A Guide to East-Central Europe. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. p. 77
The first documentation of the Jewish district of Plock (part of the old city walls in the city and NE of the market) was in 1237. In 1568, a square (current 3 Maja Street next to the School of Wladyslaw Jagiello) was purchased for a Jewish cemetery. The new cemetery was established at today's ul. Sportowej in 1845. Shortly before WWII, about 10,000 Jews lived in Plock, one-third of the populace. The October 1939 German occupation began with persecution of Jews and destruction of Jewish places of worship. During liquidation of the old Jewish cemetery, a group of Jews tried to protect the tomb of Rabbi Zysze Plocker, who had died 103 years earlier. Postwar development of the land currently holding an International School completed the destruction done by the Nazis. The portion of the old cemetery wall that still remains acted for the pedestrian way from ul 3 May to ul Padlewskiego. Almost totally destroyed, gravestones from the new cemetery and those from the old were used by the Nazis to pave sidewalks and stairs from the hills of the Dominican Wisla. After WWII, about three hundred Jews returned to Plock to restore the religious and cultural life and established the Jewish Committee on February 22, 1945 that organized the October 1946 exhumation of Jewish corpses murdered in Plock in order to convey them to the cemetery on ul Mickiewicz. Part of that cemetery is fenced on three sides with a metal fence that separates the cemetery from the open end. On the wall called the Wailing Wall are matzevot fragments from both the old and the new cemetery. In the other part of the cemetery are postwar graves. At the cemetery is a monument commemorating the Plock Jews murdered design by Lucjan Kota, an artist from Bytom. Anti-Semitic graffiti on the monument occurred in 1997. The cemetery had been cleaned, fenced, and completely restoration with a clean monument. We remember Jewish Plock!. Video. [June 2009]
CEMETERY:
PLOCK (I): US Commission No. POCE000624
(Plotzk in Yiddish) Plock is located in the province of Plockie at 52º32 19º40, 95 km from Warszawa. The cemetery is located on Sportowa Street. Present town population is over 100,000 with fewer than 10 Jews.
- Town: Plock is Urzad Miasta, Stary Rynek 1, tel. 23552.
- Regional: Wojewodzki Konserwator Zabytkow, 09-400 Plock, ulica Kolegialna 15.
The earliest known Jewish community in Plock was 1237. 1921 Jewish population was 7,352. In 1655-1657 during the Swedish invasion, the Jewish quarters were destroyed. In 1688, there was a fire in Plock. Living here were Jehuda Leib Margoles (1791-1811), a rabbinical adherent of the Haskala, and Jozef Kwiatek (1874-1910), Socialist activist. The Orthodox, Conservative, and Progressive/Reform Jewish cemetery was established in 1845 with last known Jewish burial in 1968. Landmarked: Official Register of Jewish Cemeteries of 1981. The isolated urban flat land has a sign in Polish mentioning the Jewish community. A continuous fence with non-locking gate surrounds it. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all. The present size of the cemetery is 3.2 hectares (the same as before W.W.II.) 1-20 gravestones visible in the cemetery, some not in original location with less than 25% toppled or broken, date from 1889-20th centuries. The granite, sandstone and concrete flat shaped stones with carved relief decorations or multi-stone monuments have Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish inscriptions. The cemetery contains special memorial monuments to Holocaust victims, but no known mass graves. Municipality owns site used as a Jewish cemetery. Properties adjacent are recreational and residential. Occasionally, organized individual tours, private Jewish and non-Jewish visitors, and local residents visit. The cemetery was vandalized during W.W.II. In 1983, the Jewish Religious Union cleared vegetation and fixed the wall and gate. Authorities do occasional clearing and cleaning. There are slight vegetation and vandalism threats.
Pawel Fijalkowski, 96-500, Sochaczew, ulica Ziemowita 11, tel. 227-91 completed survey on September 11, 1991 and visited the cemetery in July 1991.
Cemetery is at ul. Mickiewicza formerly ul. Sportowa; Source: Miriam Weiner
burial list [Jan 2015]
PLOCK (II): US Commission No. POCE000625
This Orthodox, Conservative, and Progressive/ Reform cemetery is located on Ulica 3-Gomaja and probably was established in the 13th century. The last known Jewish burial was around 1850. The isolated urban flat land has no sign or marker, no wall, gate, or fence. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all. The size of the cemetery before W.W.II was around 2 hectares (no longer exists) No gravestones are visible. It contains no known mass graves. Municipality owns site used as a dormitory for the high school. Properties adjacent are agricultural and residential. Private Jewish and non-Jewish visitors or local residents rarely visit. The cemetery was vandalized during W.W.II. Same survey information as Plock (I) above.
[UPDATE] Photos by Charles Burns [April 2016]