KLODAWA

KLODAWA (Pol. Klodawa), town in Poznan province, central Poland. A Jewish settlement existed there in 1487, when the Jewish poll tax was levied by Jan Chelmski. At the beginning of the 19th century, it was argued that Jewish residence in Klodawa had been excluded by a privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis dated 1647, allegedly granted to the town by "King Augustus." However in privileges issued to the town of 1720 and 1739, confirming those granted by kings Ladislas Jagello (1386–1434) and Sigismund II Augustus (1548–72), there is no mention of a prohibition on Jewish residence in Klodawa. This was first forbidden in 1755 and is also mentioned in a privilege given to the guilds by King Michael Wisnowiecki (1660–73). All these restrictions were abolished at the end of the 18th century. According to a 1789 census, a number of Jews in Klodawa engaged in crafts. Under Prussian rule the growing Jewish population was assigned to a special residential quarter (Dziadowice); they numbered 221 (22% of the total population) in 1808. After 1815 the town was within Congress Poland. In 1860 the old wooden synagogue, located in the Dziadowice quarter, was replaced by a stone building. The community numbered 443 in 1827, 585 in 1857, 874 in 1897, 1,148 (29.4%) in 1921, and 1,350 in 1939. (Encyclopaedia Judaica (Germany) -Holocaust Period Before World War II about 1,350 Jews lived in Klodawa. Under the German occupation Klodawa came within the Hohensalza district. In December 1940 there were 1,186 Jews, including 108 refugees from localities in the region. Nearly 300 Jews must have fled from Klodawa or were deported by the Nazis to the General Government in the first two years of the occupation (1939–40). On Jan. 2–4, 1942, 46 Jews from Klodawa were killed in the Kazimierzow forest near the town of Zagorow. From Jan. 9–12, 1942, the remainder were deported to the nearby chelmno death camp. (Danuta Dombrowska) -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Rawita-Witanowski, Kłodawa (1904); Warsaw, Archiwum Główne, no. 485; Warsaw, Archiwum Akt Dawnych, Akty Komisji do spraw wewnętrznych, no. 186; I. Schiper, Studya nad stosunkami gospodarczymi Żydów Polsce podczas Średniowiecza (1911), index; B. Wasiutyśnki, Ludność żydowska w Polsce w XIX I XX wiekach (1930), 25; D. Dabrowskad, in: BŻIH, no. 13–14 (1955), passim.