SKĘPE
Date unknown, Warsaw ghetto, author unknown, account concerning the
Jewish population of Skępe. August and September 1939, persecutions,
the figure of Rabbi Yosef Leyb Gelernter,¹⁴⁵⁹ expulsion on 21 December
1939 and wandering of the Jews of Skępe.
[1] The Jewish population of the shtetl of S[kępe]¹⁴⁶⁰ in the period from
the beginning of the war to the expulsion, that is, from the beginning of
wrzesień¹⁴⁶¹ to 21 grudzień¹⁴⁶² 1939, and the road taken by the Jews of the
shtetl of S[kępe] after 21 grudzień to their new places of exile in the so-called
General Government.
A few days before the war.
The shtetl of S[kępe] is on tenterhooks. These are the first days of the
month of elul in the year 5699. There are rumours of war, of battles. There is
fighting somewhere — but where exactly? Somewhere far away, near the border.
The longer such talk goes on, the more the temperature rises and the hotter
it gets. The shtetl is running round in circles, people are boiling over. One
minute they [the enemy] are already here, the next minute they’re over there.
Here, they’ve dropped bombs. There, they’ve broken through the front. People
tell each other the news — a sensation from one town, a revelation from
another. One man talks about the radio, another about a speech. This one is
talking about a letter, and that one is just talking. I saw it myself, says one;
I read it myself, says another; I heard it myself, says a third. One person says one
1459 Yosef Leyb Gelernter (1908–1942?), rabbi of Skępe and chairman of the local rabbinic court from 1931; in the Warsaw ghetto he was head of the Religious Department of the Central Committee of Refugees of ŻSS. See Maria Ferenc, “Rabin Josef Lejb Gelernter ze Skępego i jego ślady w Archiwum Ringelbluma”, in: „Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały” 15 (2019).
1460 The number of Jews in Skępe in 1939 was approximately 300. The author or the copyist uses only the first letter of geographical names; wherever recognisable, the remainder of the name was added in brackets.
1461 (Polish) September.
1462 (Polish) December.
