Translation of the
Zakroczym Yizkor Book

Project Synopsis

Project Synopsis:  This project is being initiated in order to fund the translation of the Yizkor Book. Originally published in Hebrew and Yiddish in 1985. The listed editor is Josef Zilberberg, permission to translate received from the editor’s daughter. The goal is to provide a complete translation of this book to JewishGen

Key Audiences

Jewish ancestors from Zakroczym will be interested in learning more about the community and possible ancestors.

Yizkor books are unique sources of information on once vibrant towns, primarily in central and Eastern Europe, whose Jewish populations were destroyed in the Holocaust. Written after World War II by émigrés and Holocaust survivors, YIzkor books contain narratives of the history of the town, details of daily life, religious and political figures and movements, religious and secular education, and gripping stories of the major intellectual and Zionist movements of the 20th century. The necrologies and lists of residents are of tremendous genealogical value, as often the names of individuals who were taken to extermination camps or died in the forests are not recorded elsewhere.

According to Wikipedia, Zakroczym ([zaˈkrɔt͡ʂɨm]; Yiddish: זאקראטשין‎ Zakrotshin) is a small town in the Masovian Voivodeship, Poland. It is located at around 52°26′16″N 20°36′43″E. The Vistula River flows through the town. Zakroczym has a long and rich history: in the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was the capital of an dministrative unit (ziemia), part of Mazovian Voivodeship. Also, Zakroczym was a royal town of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The town lies at the intersection of two main roads - national road 62, and national road 7.

According to the Site http://www.zchor.org/zakroczym/zakroczym.htm during WW II:

From the first day of the occupation Jews were sent out to forced labor, whereafter representatives of the Jewish community took upon themselves to supply the Germans and the municipality with the workers they required. Jewish artisans were permitted to ply their trade, especially for the Germans, until the Jewish community ceased to exist.

On a Sunday at the end of June or the beginning of July 1941 the town was surrounded by German gendarmes and armed local Germans. The Jews were herded into the market place. Those who did not possess residence permits in Zakroczym, together with the old, were put onto lorries and taken off to the camp at Pomiechówek. For these deportees, who were literally dying of hunger, the Jews of Zakroczym took food and soup to the camp. Israel Gesziw and his wife and Hirsch Katz were prominent in this effort. Poles too were among those who contributed food.

In the middle of November 1941 the Germans removed all the Jews of Zakroczym to the ghetto of Nowy Dwór, where they shared the fate of the local Jews.

After the war some Jews returned to Zakroczym, but left again and immigrated, mainly to Israel, where in the 1960s there were 50-70 former residents of Zakroczym.

In Zakroczym itself there remained no trace of the Jewish community that had once numbered thousands of souls. The synagogue and the cemetery were totally obliterated during the Nazi occupation.

As funds become available, pages will be translated into English by a professional translator.  The book is small enough to be translated from beginning to end at an orderly pace, without pause.  The project coordinator will review the translation and work closely with the translators.

Estimated Cost

A full translation is currently estimated to cost $4,000.  This may change and can be adjusted over time if necessary and if translation is more burdensome than expected.