Jewish community

Aerial photo of Stawiski from the period of World War II. In the background, the church of St. Antoni Padewski and the Great Synagogue.

Jewish life in Stawiski had been separate from that of the rest of the town's inhabitants. The Jews had established many institutions of their own, including synagogues and Jewish schools and libraries.^[3] By 1932, over 50% of Stawiski's population, some 2,000 persons, was Jewish.^[4]

During the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, Stawiski was initially occupied by Germany. During the month-long German occupation, German soldiers raped Jewish women and plundered Jewish property. Some Poles who had been ordered to supervise Jewish labor brigades humiliated the conscripted workers. After a Stawiski priest blamed the Jews for the murder of some German soldiers, the Germans executed several Jews, burned down the small synagogue or perhaps a bet midrash, and set fire to part of the town. The Germans deported a group of able-bodied male Jews (and Christians) to forced labor camps in East Prussia. After some three weeks, the Germans passed control of Stawiski to Soviet forces.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Soviet rule lasted until the Germans returned to the town in June 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. Local Poles welcomed the arriving Germans with flowers, and German army scouts who arrived on 27 June noted the Poles' hatred for Jews. Local Poles, mostly recently released from Soviet prisons, asked German permission to take revenge on the Jews and killed some. In early July 1941 the Germans instigated a pogrom in which Polish mobs armed with iron bars murdered some 300 Jews.^[6][7] Some Poles were motivated by revenge against earlier Soviet supporters.^[8] A German Einsatzkommando was present in the town during 4–5 July 1941.^[9] A similar, better known, atrocity took place on 10 July 1941 in nearby Jedwabne.^[6]

Beginning on 17 August 1941, the Germans^{[lower-alpha 2]} executed most of Stawiski's Jewish community. Some 900 able-bodied Jews were killed in a ditch near Mątwica, where Jewish women and children from Kolno and Jews from Mały Płock were also executed. Some 700 persons, mostly infants, elderly, and handicapped, were killed in Płaszczatka (or Stawiski) Forest.^{[lower-alpha 3]}

Some 60^[7] to 105^[5] Jews remained, mainly skilled workers and their families, who were confined to a ghetto. Some Jews from Stawiski who survived in hiding sought refuge in the Łomża Ghetto, others remained hidden until permitted by the Germans to work as farm laborers.^{[lower-alpha 4]} On 2 November 1942 the ghetto was closed and its occupants were transferred to a transit camp in Bogusze, and from there were sent to the Auschwitz and Treblinka extermination camps.^{[lower-alpha 5][7]}

Some 50 Stawiski Jews managed to evade deportation, but most of them were found and executed in subsequent searches. Some of the hiding Jews were denounced by Poles, and at least 11 of them were murdered by local Poles in nearby Mały Płock gmina.^{[lower-alpha 6]}

Only a few of the 2,000 pre-war Jewish inhabitants of Stawiski survived the Holocaust.^[7]

Some of the Stawiski Jews murdered during the war are buried in a mass grave at the Jewish cemetery in the Płaszczatka forest.