Gostynin District, Warsaw Province, Poland

Year	Population	Jews
1808	1,183	577
1827	2,926	1,472
1857	3,926	1,897
1897	5,137	2,539
1921	5,777	2,564
1939	?	2,312

The earliest facts that are known about Gombin (Gabin, in Polish) date from the 14th century, when the area was under the dukes of Azov. Gombin's location on the road from Plock to Lubitz shaped its development as a commercial center for the surrounding agricultural area. In 1437 the Duke of Azov Chaimovit gave to Gombin the status of town. These rights were later confirmed by the Kings of Poland. In the 17th Century, the Swedish War brought much destruction to Gombin, which was abandoned by many of its residents. In 1795, after the third partition of Poland, the town was controlled by Prussia. In 1807 it was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and from 1815 until the First World War it was part of the territory of the Congress of Poland. Gombin's development resumed in the early 18th Century, as a center of commerce and craftsmanship. A brick factory was established in 1819, and by 1869 there were 3 tanneries in Gombin.

There is no precise information about the beginnings of the Jewish community in Gombin. The first historical evidence can be found in a 1564 list of municipal taxpayers, which includes a few Jewish names. At the time, most of the Jews of Gombin made a living out of petty commerce and artisanal work, while a few were involved in the trade and export of hides. The Christian merchants and artisans opposed the settlement of Jews in Gombin. In 1576, answering to complaints of the Polish shoemakers, King Zigmunt III issued a decree forbidding the Jews to purchase hides from the peasants that lived around the town. They could buy the hides only in the town market, after the end of the morning mass of the Christians. The decree was reaffirmed in 1582 by King Stefan Batory, who added regulations prohibiting Jews from buying milk from the peasants. In 1656, during the Swedish invasion, the Polish military chief S. Tzarneitski accused the Jews of Gombin of cooperating with the enemy, and Polish soldiers went on the rampage against the Jews of the town.

Rabbi Abraham Abele ben Hayyim Halevi Gombiner (1637-1713)

With the renewed development of the town in the early 18th Century, there was some growth of the Jewish community. But the Jews were only allowed to live in some of the streets of the town. In 1710, a wooden synagogue was built in Gombin. In more modern times, the synagogue came to be regarded as a landmark historical building, part of the national cultural heritage that was under special supervision of the Department of Museums of the Polish Ministry of Education. Throughout this time, the Jews of the town continued to make a living out of petty commerce and artisanal work. There were also some tax collectors and a few Jews working in agriculture, mainly as fruit producers who rented land from German colonists. Court documents in Warsaw indicate that in 1690 Christian merchants complained about the Jewish tax collectors Jacob from Gostynin and his son Yiocham from Gombin. Between 1823 and 1862 the Jews of Gombin were restricted to a special section of the town (harevir).

Gombin had an organized Jewish community since the beginning of the 18th Century. Among the distinguished rabbis from this community are Chaim Halevi and Abraham Abele Gombiner who wrote the Magen Abraham.

Before the First World War, the majority of Jewish children studied in hedarim. At the turn of the century the heder hametukan, based on modern pedagogic methods, was introduced in Gombin. In 1914, a group of young intellectuals founded a library that had an attached reading room. In 1915 the town was occupied by the Germans, who allowed the residents to organize socially and politically. In the municipal elections of January 1917, the Jewish residents of Gombin won 12 of the 18 seats in the council. In those years, the chief rabbi was Yehuda Zlotnik, a supporter of the Zionist movement. In 1927 he was replaced by Rabbi Nutkowitz.

Jewsish leather workers in Gombin, 1909 Source: Diane and David Roskies, The Shtetl Book (1975)

Between the First and the Second World Wars, most Jews in Gombin continued to make a living from small-scale commerce, peddling, and artisanal work. They owned shops and market stands where they sold cloth, all sorts of small items, hides, shoes, and groceries. Among the 488 artisans and craftsmen of the town, there were 198 Jews representing all the branches of production. In 1935 there were 65 tailors, 15 needleworkers, 25 seamstresses and embroiderers, 7 cap makers, 28 shoemakers, 5 locksmiths, 10 tinshmiths, 4 furniture makers, 4 builders, and 5 barbers. In addition, there were 5 bakers and 14 butchers in the town. Some Jews made a living from transport (carriers and owners of carts). There were Jewish workers employed in the factories of the town, in the tanneries and in shoemaking. Surrounded by pine woods, Gombin has a refreshing athmosphere, and some of the Jews made a living out of services for vacationers. Some resting homes were established, and the grocery business expanded.

By this time, several organizations of mutual help and welfare were active in Gombin. In 1922, 129 artisans created an unified association. Later, chapters of this organization were formed by trades: apparel workers in 1933, tailors and needleworkers in 1935, and also locksmiths, tinsmiths, bakers, and butchers.

In 1922 the merchants created an "Association of Small Merchants" that had 92 members. The year 1927 saw the establishment of a loan cooperative that provided loans to craftsmen and merchants. The capital of the cooperative reached the sum of 10,000 zlotys, providing loans for about 700 Jews every year. In that same year the Popular Bank Cooperative was created, with an initial capital of 17,000 zlotys. In 1931 the associations of craftsmen and merchants created the Bank of Artisans and Small Merchants with an initial capital of 10,000 zlotys.

These institutions were helpful to many of the Jews of Gombin, whose situation worsened as a result of the economic crisis of 1928-1930. However, despite the mutual help, there was crushing poverty among many of the artisans and peddlers of the town. The poor were helped by welfare organizations, among which the most important were the Bread House, founded in 1923 to help the poorest people, and Linat Tzedek, created in 1926 to provide shelter for the homeless and medical help to the needy. The economic crisis and the lack of employment pushed many Jews overseas. Between 1920 and 1935, 47 Jewish families and 127 individuals emigrated from Gombin (3 of these families and 31 individuals went to Palestine).

The youth group, Hashomer Hatzair, in Gombin, 1926 Source: personal album of Abram Chaja Guyer

During the period between the First and the Second World Wars, the Gombin Jews were noted for their social and cultural activism. There were local chapters of all the Jewish parties that existed in Poland at the time. All the different sectors of the Zionist movement were represented: the General Zionists, Poalei Zion, Mizrahi, and Tzahar. The Zionist Youth Movements had branches in the town: Hashomer Hatzair (since 1922), Hashomer Hadati (since 1937). Many members of these movements went to kibutzei hakshara. There was also a local chapter of WIZO, with 35 members. As for the non-Zionist parties, both the Agudat Israel and the Bund were represented in Gombin. All these groups competed for leverage within the Kahal. After the 1931 elections, the composition of the Kahal board was as follows: Zionists 3 seats; artisans 4 seats, Agudat Israel 1 seat.

Throughout this period most of the children continued to attend the traditional hedarim and the Tilmud Torah that was run by the Kahal. But they also attended the Polish official school. There were evening courses, also supported by the Kahal, in which young workers could learn Hebrew and Jewish history. Attempts to establish modern schools were not successful, as the new schools had to be closed on account of the difficult economic situation of the majority of the Jews. The Tarbut school existed until 1926, and the Agudat Israel school and the Tzisha Children's Home were both closed in 1933. Between the World Wars, two libraries existed in Gombin. The library of the Zionists had about 3,000 books in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish. The library of the Bundists had about 2,700 books. Attached to the Bund library there was a drama and literature group. The main sporting clubs in Gombin were Maccabi (since 1921) and Hapoel (founded in 1935).

The growing antisemitism of the 1930s left its mark on Gombin, as the local Jews suffered the effects of the economic boycott that was being enforced throughout Poland against the Jewish merchants and artisans. One consequence was the reduction of the Kahal's budget, precisely at a time in which the number of people who needed welfare was rapidly increasing. In 1930, the budget stood at 37,267 zloty. Of this amount, 1,700 went to social welfare and 1,000 to Torah study. By 1935, the Kahal's budget had gone down to 26,138 zloty, the welfare allocation had increased to 2,600, and the Torah study subsidy had been reduced to 300 zloty. On that year, the Kahal supported about 130 impoverished Jews.

Gombin was occupied by the Wehrmacht on September 7, 1939. On arrival, the Nazis began to press Jews for forced labor, mainly to refill the defense trenches that had been dug in the area by the Polish army. Towards the end of September 1939 the Jews were ordered to concentrate in the New Market Square. There, they were abused by Nazi officers, and some were murdered on the spot. On the same day, Nazi soldiers set the wooden synagogue to fire. The fire spread to the Beit Hamidrash and to neighboring houses. The Nazis blamed the Jews for the fire, imposing on them a collective fine. The abuses increased from day to day. Early in October 1939, the Jews of Gombin were ordered to wear a yellow star on their outer clothing. All males had to register and be available for three days of forced labor per week. Later that month, a Judenrat of six members was established, headed by Moshe Want. At the beginning of 1940 the Gombin Jews were evicted from their homes and concentrated in a separate section of the town. At first, the ghetto was open and the Jews could go out to purchase food from Polish peasants. At that time, there were 2,100 Jews in the ghetto, 250 of whom had been deported from surrounding townships. Men and women were forced to provide a variety of services and work for the Nazi authorities and the German companies that were being established in the area. During the first half of 1941 the Jews began to be rounded up and sent to labor camps in Konin, Eindziov, and Hohenzaltz. About 200 Jews were deported to the labor camps, many of them eventually ending up in Auschwitz.

On May 12, 1942 the Nazis liquidated the Gombin ghetto, dispatching the remaining Jews to the extermination camp at Chelmno. The Jews who resisted were shot on the spot.

Only 212 Jews from Gombin survived. Of these, 180 escaped at the time of the German invasion and managed to cross the border into the area of Poland that had been occupied by the Soviet Union. Of the other 32, many spent the war in hiding on the Aryan side, while a few survived the concentration camps. After the war, the majority of those who remained alive went to the United States or Israel.

Bibliography

Pinkas Hakehilot, Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities. Poland, Volume 4: Warsaw and its Region. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1989.