Białystok Great Synagogue Memorial Site

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Jews constituted almost half of Białystok's population in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The city developed as a centre of the textile industry, and Jewish manufacturers, merchants and craftsmen played a key role in its industrialisation. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Białystok was one of the most important Jewish centres in the Russian Empire, with an extensive network of synagogues, houses of prayer, schools, hospitals and cultural organisations.

The Great Synagogue — the Wielka Bożnica, or Beit HaKnesset HaGadol in Hebrew — was built between 1909 and 1913 to an architectural design in the historicist Romanesque Revival style with Moorish elements. The building, accommodating three thousand worshippers, dominated the central skyline of the city on Suraska Street. It was the principal municipal synagogue — the site of religious ceremonies, festivals and important community gatherings. Its great prayer hall with galleries held men on the ground floor and women in the galleries running along three sides of the nave.

German forces entered Białystok on 27 June 1941, the sixth day of Operation Barbarossa. On that same day, without any transitional period, German reserve police — Police Reserve Battalion 309 — carried out a large-scale action in the city centre. Groups of Jews were herded through the streets to the synagogue; other groups were enclosed and shot in the nearby Kościuszko Market Square. An estimated eight hundred to two thousand people were driven into the Great Synagogue. The building was set on fire. Those who attempted to jump from the windows were shot. The synagogue burned for several hours.

The crime of 27 June 1941 was carried out by Police Reserve Battalion 309 — not an SS unit or an Einsatzgruppe. It was one of the first mass murders of Jews in the East, perpetrated not in camps but in the centre of a city, in broad daylight. Historians estimate the number of victims on that day and in the subsequent days of repression in Białystok at two to three thousand people. The Białystok Ghetto, one of the largest in Poland, survived until August 1943, when it was liquidated during a dramatic uprising.

The synagogue building burned to the ground. After the war the site on Suraska Street stood empty for years. Today a memorial stands where the synagogue once rose — marked by an obelisk and information plaques in Polish and English. The site is accessible at all hours.

The Great Synagogue on Suraska Street exists today only as a memory preserved in photographs and descriptions. Archival photographs show a massive brick building in the historicist style, combining Romanesque forms — arcades, semicircular windows, turrets — with Moorish detailing. The main facade, facing Suraska Street, had clear symmetry with a central portal and two lateral projecting bays.

The interior of the prayer hall accommodated three thousand worshippers: men on the ground floor, women in the galleries running along three sides of the nave. The bimah stood centrally; the Aron HaKodesh on the eastern wall was decorated in keeping with Ashkenazi Jewish tradition.

The present memorial on Suraska Street marks the site where the synagogue stood. The obelisk and information plaques record the history of the building and the crime of 27 June 1941.

The memorial site on Suraska Street is an open space, accessible at all hours without charge. There are no dress or head-covering requirements. Photography is permitted. Silence and a composed manner are appropriate — this is the site of a mass murder.

A visit to the memorial site may be accompanied by a visit to the Historical Museum in Białystok (ul. Warszawska 37), where the history of Białystok including its Jewish community is presented. The Białystok History Centre occasionally organises guided walks along the route of Jewish Białystok.

Zasady wizyty:

• • Nakrycie głowy mężczyzn: nie wymagane
• • Separacja płci: nie
• • Fotografia: dozwolona
• • Datek: opcjonalny

Suraska Street is in the very centre of Białystok, a hundred metres from Kościuszko Market Square. The Mercedes V-Class arrives via Lipowa or Kilińskiego Street. Parking: the square on Suraska Street or car parks on Warszawska Street. Białystok is 195 km from Warsaw (two hours via A2), and 28 km from Tykocin (the Baroque synagogue — readily combined into a single day).