Tag #152354 - Interview #78059 (Yakov Honiksman)

Lublin town, where my parents lived, is one of the oldest Polish towns - it was mentioned back in the 10th century - on the Bystrzyca River in the southeast of Poland. The first information about Jews goes back to the 14th century. At that time a district where Jews settled was founded: Piaski zydowskie ['Jewish sands' in Polish]. Jews were tradesmen and craftsmen: tailors and leather specialists. Gradually the size of the Jewish population increased and at times it constituted almost half of the population of the town. Big, beautiful synagogues were built. Lublin was called 'Yerushalayim de Polin' - Polish Jerusalem. Jews owned bakery and leather industries that were the most profitable of all. Throughout the history of Jewish residency in Lublin there were anti-Semitic demonstrations, Jewish pogroms and periods of unfriendly attitudes of the Polish population. At the time when I was born, in 1921, the Jewish population constituted 37,337 Jews, 35 % of the population.