1. Stoczek Łukowski - Centrum miejscowości

The town was founded under the Magdeburg Law probably around 1546. By virtue of a privilege from King Sigismund the Old on the site of the medieval settlement of Poznańska Wola (owned by the bishops of Poznań). Along with the location privilege, it received a new name - Sebastyanowo - and the right to hold weekly markets, three fairs a year and propinate alcohol.The name Stoczek became firmly established in the mid-17th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries. The city developed as a local trade and craft center - there were a potters' guild, distilleries and breweries. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Stoczek was plundered by the Swedes, it was also repeatedly destroyed in fires, and in 1778. Its residents were decimated by a cholera epidemic. By the early 19th century. It was inhabited almost exclusively by Catholics, only after 1805., when it passed into state ownership, Jews began to settle. During the November Uprising (February 14, 1831) there was a victorious battle between Polish troops and a Russian riding division.In 1869 Stoczek lost its city rights. In the late 1880s. Was a small agricultural and commercial settlement.It held six fairs a year and a fortnightly large market, where grain, cattle and non-horn goods were traded. In 1916, Stoczek regained its municipal rights.In the interwar period, residents made a living from agriculture, trade, crafts (shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry) and small industry. There were four mills, two oil mills, three puddling plants, a concrete plant, a beer bottling plant, three sparkling water plants, numerous stores and g a s t r o n o m i c s with a liquor store. The local horse fair was the largest in Poland and one of the largest in Europe. Between 1931 and 1935, a new public school building was erected, a vocational school, a postal and telegraph office, a municipal court, a branch of the fire department and the Riflemen's Association, with a day care center and a reading room. There had been a movie theater here since the mid-1930s. September 12, 1939. The city was set on fire by the Germans and most of its buildings burned down.Jews in Stoczek Lukowski - Until 1939. - By the early 19th century. Stoczek was a town belonging to the Plock bishops.Jews were most likely not allowed to settle there.After 1805., i.e. After Stoczek became the property of the government, the first Jews appeared in it. They engaged in trade and crafts, and their presence contributed to the economic development of the town.In the 19th century. The local Jewish community grew rapidly in terms of demographics. Probably in the second half of the 19th century. or at the end of the century an independent municipality was established.In the interwar period in Stoczek, the Zionist movement had strong public support. In the second half of the 1930s, due to growing anti-Semitism and the economic crisis, the situation of Jews worsened significantly - there were even attacks on Jewish merchants.Holocaust - Shortly after occupying the city, the Germans set up a Judenrat, and probably soon afterwards established an open ghetto in the area of Wodna, Bóżnicza and Droga Kościelna streets. In addition to the Jews from Stoczek Lukowski, it included Jews from neighboring towns, refugees and displaced persons from Warsaw and Greater Poland and Zamojszczyzna - a total of about 2,000 people. The material situation of Jews in the ghetto was very difficult. It is evidenced by, among other things. letter addressed in 1940. by the local Judenrat to the Joint with a request for food rations for 1,200 of the ghetto's 1,956 residents. In the summer of 1941. typhoid epidemic broke out and many people in the ghetto died.At the end of August 1941. Some able-bodied Jews were transported from the ghetto to Parysow. A small group of Jews remained in Stoczek itself.The liquidation of the ghetto took place in the summer or early fall of 1942. In June and July, or September 1942., all Jews from the ghetto were driven to Parysow.During the march, the Germans shot about. 200 people whose bodies were buried in a mass grave in the Jewish cemetery in Starowola near Parysow. After a short stay in Parysow, the Jews of Stoczek, together with Jews from the local ghetto, were driven to the Sobolev train station, from where they were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp.