2 July Tykocin

Today we traveled from Warsaw to Tykocin, to Lopuchowo, to Treblinka, into East Poland where the great influx of Jews came, near the Russian and Lithuanian borders. 

We stopped at Tykocin, an important Jewish town. Jews first settled here in 1522.  Rivka Tiktiner, an early Jewish religious authority and writer of Menekit Rivka, a book about raising children and the duties of women, lived here in the first half of the 16th century.

Our bus toured around the main market square and saw the huge Church of the Holy Trinity.

 

Here Marcellina shows the city plan. She points to the Cathedral on the right below. To the left where Kevin stands by the River Motlawa is the Great Synagogue. There was a big Jewish neighborhood around the synagogue and before WWII made up 44 per cent of the population of Tykocin.

The side of the Synagogue

And the front. I'm sorry I did not get the big round tower on the right which was used as a prison.

Right by the front door, small wooden statues  of Jewish men are for sale with a picture of a priest behind them.

This synagogue is lovely and very big, in fact, bigger than the church in spite of the law that said synagogues could not be bigger than churches. The way this law was evaded was by making the floor level below street level so inside there is more room from floor to ceiling.

One of the livelihoods for Jews in this town was making prayer shawls and here some are exhibited.

The Torah would be kept behind the red curtain and the candles would be lit. However there are no practicing Jews so the candles are not lit.

A prayer room for women and hallway encircles the main room. There are interesting exhibits here.

Looking into the synagogue from a prayer room

The town is the same as it was before the Tykocin Jews were murdered. Here Herb stands in front of #1 ul. Kaczorowska under the Star of David.

We walked on the cobbled streets around the lovely town. Hollyhocks and delphiniums in bloom; cherries and apples ripening on trees.

Today there are about 2000 people living in the village but no practicing Jews.

We had a nice lunch.

I had zurek or white borsht, one of my favorite Polish soups and it was delicious.

We left and drove by the castle, a reproduction. Polish kings used it as a residence on their way to 

Lithuania.

We saw a stork family in their tree house in the castle yard. Marcellina told us that storks bring good luck and they summer in Poland and have become a symbol of Poland.