Follow
Babimost (German: Bomst) is a small town in Poland in the Lubusz Voivodeship, Zielona Gora County.
Area: 3,6 km², Population: 4,300 (2001), City rights: 1397.
Until 1945 Babimost (German: Bomst) was part of Germany. In 1871 the town had 2272 inhabitants, of whom 1042 were Catholics (mostly Poles), 1070 were Evangelical Lutherans (mostly Germans) and 160 Jewish. After the territorial changes following World War I, the town lay on the border with Poland; although remaining with Germany, up to a third of its residents were Poles.
The inhabitants were shoe manufacturers, linen producers and hop (beer) and wine producers. Between 1818 and 1938 Babimost was administrative centre of the Kreis Bomst. In 1939 1950 inhabitants were registered as citizens of the town, of whom 600 were ethnic Polish. Source Wikipedia 2015.
In 1946 all German inhabitants had been expelled by force; the Potsdam Conference had given the town to the People's Republic of Poland.
Town birth, death, marriage and some community records and data on microfilm from the Family History Library includes three different films. These are 1273157, 474924 and 474931. These are in the German language. They are indexed in the IAJGS database on JewishGen but no details from the films themselves are shown, only film numbers. New information in December 2021 indicates that the entire microfilm collection at the Mormon Family History Library files has been digitized and may be available online.
This town is also mentioned on the Jewish Records Indexing site at www.jri-polan.org A complete list of all births, deaths and marriages is awaiting more work on the original books in the files of the government. In the meantime census and other documents are being made available online.
In 2016 additional data came online at the Poznan Project, an extraction of Civil Registry of Marriages in the Posen area in the 1800's. The entry point is here: http://poznan-project.psnc.pl/index.php?langen#prettyPhoto
Rabbi's born in Babimost
From the Biographical Index of Rabbi's BHR1 published by the Steinheim Institute in Germany we find two Rabbi's who were born in Bomst but left to practice in other towns. Dr. Peter Buchholz was born in Babimost on October 2, 1837. He was a Rabbi at Emden in 1892. Dr. Max Biram was born in Babimost on January 1, 1853. He became a Rabbi in Hirschburg in 1916. I suggest you look directly at it at this site: http://www.steinheim-institut.de/dbs/rabbiner-index/query.html You may also refer to the Biographical Handbook of the Rabbi's (BHR), in Germany, at the same site. Here: http://www.steinheim-institut.de:50580/cgi-bin/bhr
From Yad Vashem we find 25 people who were born in Bomst who were murdered in the Holocaust, most lived in Berlin.
This site offers a comprehensive history of the town and the Jewish presence up until the end due to WW2. See here: http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/babimost/5,history/
Data from Jewish Cemetery Project cmentarze-Zydowskie.pl :
BABIMOST (BOMST)
English text
According to Andrzej Kirmiel in his study, posted on the website www.sztetl.org.pl , the Jewish cemetery in Babimost (Bomst) was founded probably in the first half of the eighteenth century, in the then suburbs of the city, at today's ul. Konstytucji 3 Maja. It is known that in the interwar period, the necropolis was surrounded by a wall, and over the gate there was an inscription in German: "For those you mourn, this holy place is hidden. Their body becomes dust, their spirit lives forever."
In the second half of the 1920s, due to the decline in the number of Jews in Babimost, the local synagogue was sold, and the money obtained from this transaction was allocated to the maintenance of the cemetery. Apparently, the cemetery survived the Nazi rule in a relatively good condition and was not destroyed until the times of the Polish People's Republic. In the 1960s, the tombstones were removed and the necropolis was designated for development.
Babimost - Jewish cemetery
In June 2009, at the place where the Babimoj Jews were buried, a monument was unveiled with an inscription in Polish: "This is where the Jewish cemetery in Babimost was. For decades, the Jews co-created the community of Babimost (Bomst). Before the outbreak of World War II, their community numbered several dozen. During the Holocaust, the German Nazis exterminated the Jewish population of the city. Honor their blessed memory. " Below are the Hebrew letters TNCBH, an abbreviation of the sentence traditionally appearing at the end of a Jewish epitaph, translated as: "Let his / her soul be bound into a crown of eternal life."
text: K. Bielawski
photo: Françoise Lesniewsk"
As of May 2018 on Geni the known names of the people living in Babimost, mostly in the 1800's, included: Berwin, Cohn, Buchholz, Lowenthal, Ascher, Steinbuch, Meyer, Biesenthal, Bornstein, Goldstein, Pinner, Mühlberg, Gerechter, Piasecki, Boldes, Grossmann, Fleischmann, Fleischer, Goldberg and Grossman
Additional Details of the Town are here:
http://www.xn--jdische-gemeinden-22b.de/index.php/gemeinden/a-b/219...
A photo essay of the present day town is available here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Babimost
A good source of the Jews of the 1830 period is Luft's work.
Jewish Citizens of the Province of Posen on November 6, 1834. Sourced from The Naturalized Jews of the Grand Duchy of Posen in 1834 ad 1835 Revised Edition, page 11. Compiled by Edward David Luft. Printed 2004 by Avotaynu.
In a Supplement to the above mentioned book there is information from Luft The Jews of Posen Province in the Nineteenth Century, s Selective Source Book, Research Guide and Supplement, available online at Wielkopolska Digital Library.
4 April 1929, Vol. 31, No. 40, Beilage to No. 14. Two pictures of the exterior of the Bomst synagogue, as before and as a Lutheran community house; 200 Jews lived in Bomst, ca. 1800; in the 1830s, over 450 Jews lived there, but now the only couple living there worships in Züllichau, p. 319.
23 May 1929, Vol. 31, No. 43. Beilage to No. 21. Interior photographs of the Bomst synagogue, p. 343.