A Brief History of Bialystok

Bialystok is the largest city in the north-eastern part of Poland. It is situated on the Biala river and was named after it. Bialystok has a population of 350,000.

Its history started in the 15th century when Raczko-Tabutowicz received the area of forests at the Bialystok River. The Wiesiolowski family was another owner of this land. They built abrick castle and a church here. Jan Klemens Branicki, a commander in chief, became the heir of the Bialystok area. It was he who transformed the previously existing abode into the magnificent residence of a great noble. Several artists and scientists came to Bialystok to take advantage of Branicki's patronage. At that time the central part of the town with its triangular market was formed. Bialystok was not large, yet neat and charming. After the partition of Poland it first belonged to the Prussian Kingdom and, after 1807, to Russia. An important change in its character was associated with the establishing of a textile factory in 1824. In 1834 custom duties on goods from the Polish Kingdom were introduced and therefore the textile industry in Bialystok started to develop on a larger scale. In the second part of the 19th century its population became six times larger and the building structure chaotic and random. Bialystok was a town of mixed nationalities: Polish, Russian, Jewish and German. This was one of the reasons for the creation of an artificial language, Esperanto, by Ludwik Zamenhof, who lived in Bialystok.

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Bialystok was far away from the battlefield for many months. Inevitably, however, the town suffered the effects of events. On 20 April 1915 the first heavy bombing of the town took place. On 13 August 1915 German soldiers appeared in Bialystok. One of the consequences of the First World War was the forcible seizure of plants and the subsequent stripping of their equipment. In 1922, gradual restoration of the industry began and many attempts were made to consolidate it. At that time Bialystok had 165 industrial establishments, mostly small-sized. Among them were 119 textile plants. There were also plants producing metal, timber and leather products. Limitations in the absorptive capacity of the home market, together with high prices for Bialystok products on foreign markets, led to a severe stagnation of the industry lasting up to the beginning of 1926. This brought about the standstill of some of the local plants and an enormous increase in unemployment.

When on February 19, 1919 Bialystok was liberated from German occupation, the town already had a partly organized elementary schooling system. Two secondary schools for boys and girls also existed in the town. During 1919 to 1939 elementary schooling in Bialystok proceeded in two directions: state-operated schools, which were in the minority; and a considerable number of private schools. The latter were mainly attended by Jewish youths. Bialystok also had three music schools.

In mid-September 1939, Bialystok was occupied by the German army. The first occupation was of short duration: seven days later, as a result of the scandalous betrayal known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Hitler's soldiers retreated behind the demarcation line agreed upon with the Red Army units invading the region of what was called Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. At the request of a committee elected by the People's Assembly of Western Byelorussia, the Bialystok region was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Bialystok became the capital of a Soviet district in the new administrative division. The transformation of its social and economic life into a socialist order started. The town's ancient tradition as an important centre of the textile industry was resumed as well. The Soviet authorities introduced and ruthlessly copied models that had been applied back home. This had a harmful effect upon relations between the Polish and Byelorussian population.

On June 27, 1941, Bialystok again fell into German hands, as a result of the June 22nd invasion of the Soviet Union. On August 1, German officials combined parts of the former Bialystok Voivodship into a special district called "Bezirk Bialystok." From the very beginning, the Germans pursued a ruthless policy of pillage and extermination of the non-German population. This involved, in the first place, mass deportations to work as slave labor in Germany, seizures of hostages, and frequent actions against the urban population, mainly its cultural classes. The numerous Jewish population, some 50 to 60 thousand, were confined in a ghetto which during August 1941 was brutally exterminated. The most infamous atrocity occured on 24th July 1941 when Nazi troops locked over 3,000 Jews within the Great Synagogue (the largest wooden synagogue in Eastern Europe) and burned it down. However, a number of anti-fascist groups came into existence in Bialystok during the first weeks of the occupation. In the following years, there developed a well-organized resistance movement which in Bialystok consisted of three nationalistic groups: a Soviet, a Polish, and a Jewish group, respectively.

After the German occupation resumed, the school teachers of Bialystok began to organize clandestine teaching. As early as in the first year of secret schooling, Bialystok had a complete network of clandestine courses, covering the urban quarters - Bojary, Piaski, the region of the train station - and the town's outskirts, Bialystoczek, Wygoda, Zacisze, and Antoniuk. In the last year of the occupation, a clandestine upper Commercial School came into existence. The pupils of the school also took part in the underground resistance movement. As a result, some of them were jailed, some killed and others deported to concentration camps.

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