RYPIN COUNTY
RYPIN
Date unknown, Warsaw ghetto, author unknown, testimony recorded by
Daniel Fligelman, “Rypin.” Persecutions of the Jewish population from
the entry of the German troops to the deportation on 14 November 1939.
[1] Rypin
Before the war, the population of Rypin was 10,000, with Jews constituting
about 20 per cent of that number. The Germans marched into Rypin on
4 September. As soon as the next day they began extensive searches to find
guns and… the rabbi.¹⁵⁶⁶ But he was clever and prudent enough to have disappeared several days in advance.
On the third day after the Germans’ entry, all Jewish men were ordered
to come at 8 a.m. to the square outside the unfinished high school building.
At the designated hour, a relatively large German detachment was waiting for
them there. Those who arrived late got a kick with a hobnailed soldier’s boot
for every minute they were late [. . .], while others came a quarter of an hour
early with characteristic Jewish punctuality! In the meantime, everybody was
arranged into a row and drilled: “About face!” “Fall-in two-deep!” etc. It should
be said that there were many older Hasidim¹⁵⁶⁷ who certainly knew less about
how to properly carry out the orders than their tormentors knew about, for
example, how to lay tefillin. That was why the elders were beaten the most
1566 A reference to Natan (Nute, Nusn) Nutkiewicz (1888–1942), activist of the Tarbut schools, rabbi of Rypin from 1927 (earlier rabbi of Gąbin and of Dobrzyń on the River Drwęca). In the Warsaw ghetto he represented the Rypin lansmanshaft, was active in the Central Commission for Refugees; worked in the Oschmann’s shop. Brought to the Umschlagplatz, he refused to enter the freight car going to Treblinka, and was shot by an Ukrainian. His life and death was described by Ringelblum, see ARG II 262/2 (Ring. II/232), p. [26].
1567 Followers of the tzaddik from Góra Kalwaria were active in Rypin. They had their shtibel called “Big House” on Garncarska Street. Their local leader was Fishel Blum.
