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The purpose of this Geni project is to identify and collect residents and former residents or people who are connected with the Jewish town of Slesin, Poland. Additions are welcome.
Ślesin is a town in Konin County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland, with 3,324 inhabitants. In partitioned Poland it belonged to the Russian-controlled Congress Kingdom from 1815; it returned to Poland when the country regained its independence in 1918. Located in Kalisz Gubernia, Poznan Province, Poland at Latitude: 52°22'00 Longitude: 18°19'00 USBGN: -528,636 Wikipedia, accessed January 8, 2020.
External Links
- Slesin Records on JRI-Poland.org Complete Extraction of records by Madeleine Okladek.
- Pinkas Hakehillot: Slesin Mentions several Rabbi's who served Slesin. "Year Total population Jews 1807 475 130 1827 857 158 1857 1035 232 1884 1242 270 1921 2078 304 1.9.39 ? 280 In the 13th century, Ślesin (hereafter S) was a village owned by the church. In 1358 it acquired the status of a town, however, it failed to develop, thus lost its town status,in 1870.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Jewish community of S consisted of a few families that dealt in crafts and small trade. In the second half of the century the community had become self-sufficient, and in 1877, Rabbi Gershon Engelman was elected to serve the community. At the end of the century Rabbi Yakov Yehuda Lev Zamelman was the Rabbi in place, and in the years 1924-1929, Rabbi Yakov David Festenberg served the community.
With the beginning of the Nazi occupation, the Jews, like their brethren in the rest of the country, suffered humiliation, economic deprivation and were forced into slave labor. In 15.7.1940, they were expelled from S and sent to Zagórów and Grodziec where they subsequently shared the fate of all the other Jews who had been concentrated in these places."
- Slesin Locality Page on Jewishgen.org
- Slesin on the International Jewish Cemetery Project "SLESIN: Wielkopolskie Alternate names: Ślesin [Pol], Sleshin [Yid], Shlesin. 52°22' N, 18°19' E, 11 miles N of Konin, 44 miles NNE of Kalisz. Jewish population: about 300. Yizkor: Pinkas ha-kehilot; entsiklopediya shel ha-yishuvim le-min hivasdam ve-ad le-aher shoat milhemet ha-olam ha-sheniya: Poland vol. 1: The communities of Lodz and its region (Jerusalem, 1976). Ślesin is a town in Konin County, Greater Poland Voivodeship with 3,102 inhabitants in 2006. [July 2009]
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Jewish community of a few families in crafts and small trade became an independent Jewish community in 1877 with its rabbi Gershon Engelman followed by Rabbi Yakov Yehuda Lev Zamelman and Rabbi Yakov David Festenberg served the community. During the Nazi occupation, the Jews were economically deprivation and forced into slave labor. In July 1940, they were sent to Zagórów and Grodziec and shared the fate of these Jews. [July 2009]
US Commission No. POCE000700
The town is located at 52º22' 18º18' in Konin voivodship, 20 km N of Konin and 12 km W of Sompolno. Cemetery: outside the town, at village Rozopole, by the S side of the road from Slesin to Wasosze. Present town population is 1,000-5,000 with no Jews.
Local: Burmistrz [Mayor] eng. Bogdan, Urzad Miasta, ul. Marchlewskiego 15 [street name may change] tel. #11 and M. Irena Sobierajska, PSOZ o/Konin Posada, gm. Kamimierz Biskupi, tel. # Konin 975, ext. 212-936. Regional: [Urzad Rejonowy, ul. 1 Maja 7 [street name may be changed], Konin. Nadlesnictwo Panstwowe [State Forest District Administration], ul. Gajowa 2, Konin. The earliest known Jewish community is second half of the 19th century. 1939 Jewish population was about 400. The unlandmarked Orthodox and Conservative Jewish cemetery was established in the second half of the 19th century. 1940 was the last known Jewish burial. The isolated, forested, suburban hillside on the side of Mikowzynskie Lake has no sign or marker. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all with a broken fence. The original gate was destroyed. The pre-and post-WWII cemetery size is about 0.9 ha. No stones are visible. "As people say, the tombstones were sandstone." The cemetery contains no known unmarked mass graves. The municipality owns the property now a forest planted in the 1950's on the site being used then as a waste dump. Adjacent property is recreational. Private visitors and local residents visit rarely. It was vandalized during WWII. No care. Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures. The cemetery is adjacent to vacation centers by Mikowzynskie Lake. Illegal summer campsites, vegetation, security, vandalism, waste dumping and incompatible nearby development are the serious threats.
Lucja Pawlicka-Nowak, Konin, ul. Mistopoola 15/76, tel. 43-43-56, who visited the site, completed survey September 1992. Documentation: card in the Conservator's office in Konin. Other documentation was "too old." Nowak interviewed, among others, Zdzistawa Rodzinska, Slesin."
Yad Vashem databases list about 240 individual records of people from Slesin who perished in the Holocaust. Submitter Mikhael Buks offered Pages of Testimony for about 45 victims. Pages of Testimony are such a rich source of additional information about families that the Submitters now have hot clickable links for themselves.
Map location: https://www.google.com/maps/place/62-561+Slesin,+Poland/@52.3604469...
From Virtual Shtetl.org.pl Accessed June 3, 2021 "The earliest records of the presence of Jews in Ślesin date back to the beginning of the 19th century. In 1884, there were 270 Jews in the town, constituting 22% of its population. The 1921 census lists 304 Jews – that is 14.6% of the total number of inhabitants. In the 1930s, several dozen Jewish families lived in Ślesin.
Despite its relatively small size, the local Jewish population constituted an independent religious community, as evidenced by the presence of a Jewish cemetery in the town. The local cultural life was thriving in the interwar period, e.g. in the form of an active amateur theatre group.
On 15 May 1940, all Ślesin Jews were deported by Germans to Zagórów and Grodziec; they eventually perished in the Holocaust. However, the Kaufman and Bier families managed to escape this tragic fate. They migrated out of Ślesin before the war and settled in Argentina; a Spanish-language book devoted to Jewish Ślesin has been published there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY “Slesin,” [in:] The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, vol. 3, eds. Sh. Spector, G. Wigoder, New York 2001, p. 1199. “Splątane losy dwóch rodzin ze Ślesina,” Jewish Historical Institute [online:] https://www.jhi.pl/blog/2015-07-01-splatane-losy-dwoch-rodzin-ze-sl... [Accessed: 2 Apr 2019]."
Additional graphic material is available at Shetl.org with an account and password.