Tykocin
This is far and away the most interesting Polish village that I have visited, and the only one that attracts a constant stream of tourists (mostly Israelis, of course). As beautiful as it is, the main reasons for this are the well-preserved synagogue at its center, and the site in the Lupochowa Forest, only a few kilometers away, at which virtually all the Jewish residents of Tykocin, some 3000 men, women, and children, were murdered in the space of two days during the Shoah. I have been in Tykocin three times, and found busloads of young Israelis each time each time.
Click for a history of Tykocin and its Jews.
Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version
The sign at the left is on the Bialystok -- Zambrow highway, at the turnoff to the village. The name of the restaurant means "Goat" in Hebrew (though incorrectly vowelled). The Polish at the right side of the sign says "Regional and Jewish Cuisine". It is indeed Polish regional, while few would think of the pork sausages as "Jewish Cuisine". The tape deck is usually playing Klezmer-type music.
The two boys, local children, in the other picture are in the parking lot adjacent to the synagogue. One can see in the background one of the ubiquitous tourist busses; their passengers, Israeli youngsters, are inside the Synagogue at this point.
At left below is the Tykocin Synagogue, built in 1642, which now serves as a museum; it is an extension of the Museum of the City of Bialystok, which has clearly spend money on rehabilitating it. The other photograph is the identifying plaque next to the entrance of the building, reading:
Historical Object
Synagogue
1642 -- 1941
Foundation for Ancient Monuments
Here are, from the left, the Aron Kodesh of the Synagogue and two views of the Bimah.
At left below is the artist who is restoring the murals. The walls are covered with what amount to whole pages from the daily prayer book; an example is seen in the photo at the right. The results of the artist's efforts are quite beautiful; unfortunately, he has no knowledge of the Hebrew language, so that he is unable to distinguish between e.g. BET and KHAF, RESH and DALET, or NUN and GIMEL, there are many errors. It is possible that there is no sentence without one. That isn't because he isn't trying to do his work right. The interior is magnificent; to think of it filled with its congregants is itself an emotional experience.
Here is the group of visiting young Israelis, listening attentively to their guide, who is explaining the history of the bulding and the Community it served for three centuries. They were later taken to the Lupochowa Forest in their bus.
Below are outbuildings of the Synagogue compound: Yeshiva, schoolrooms, etc. The restaurant is now located in the basement of one; others are living quarters for villagers.
The cabin at the left is a home; that at the right is an ice-cream parlor.
These are two sets of row houses, directly across the street from the Synagogue.
The photos at the left and the center are views of the marketplace, which is situated between what were the Jewish and Christian areas of Tykocin. It was here that the Jews were assembled before being marched to the Forest to be murdered. The picture at the right shows the little stream that was the boundary between Christian and Jewish parts of Tykocin.
At left is a view of Tykocin from across the stream on the bank of which it is situated. The history
of the village calls this the Narew River; actually it is the smaller of the two tributaries of the Narew, which join downstream, before the flow gets to Lomza. The resulting river is much greater than what is seen in the picture. What is on the other side is the Christian part of Tykocin, as can be seen in the second picture in the row, which shows Tykocin's cathedral (this village was formerly a far more important town (thus rating a cathedral), until the railway came -- and bypassed it, favoring instead Bialystok, which then took its place and importance as an industrial, commercial, and administrative center.
Next is the Cathedral itself, "Holy Trinity", and in the rightmost photograph its entry door, with banner over it, containing a saying of the present Pope, John Paul II.
Below is a tabletop model of the entire village of Tykocin. It is located in the Synagogue, in the space which, in former times, was the Ezrat Nashim, the Women's Gallery.
The pictures below show the small area in the Lupochowa Forest in which the 3000 residents of Tykocin were buried in three mass graves.
In the photo on the left, the left-hand marker says in Hebrew and Polish: "Mass Grave of the Victims of the Shoah in Tykocin". The middle sign is not legible in the photograph; that on the right says in Hebrew "Cemetery", and in Polish "Mass Grave of the Jews of Tykocin". The other picture shows the young people, approaching one of the pits.
These show the three pits, each surrounded by a fence. The stele in the picture at the right says in Polish: "Here lie 3000 Polish citizens brutally murdered in the years 1941 -- 1943 by the Hitlerite thugs. Honor their memory".
