Wloclawek
WLOCLAWEK (Rus. Votslavsk), city in central Poland. Jews began to settle in Wloclawek at the beginning of the 19th century. The Jewish population numbered 208 in 1803, 4,248 in 1897, 6,831 (21% of the total population) in 1909, and 10,209 (18.3%) in 1931. In the interwar period Zionist and other national groups were active in the community. In the census of 1931, 96% of the Jews declared their mother tongue to be Yiddish or Hebrew. Among the outstanding personalities of Wloclawek were R. Judah Leib *Kowalsky, a leader of the Mizrachi movement in Poland, and Abraham Leib Fuks, a physician and a Zionist leader. There was a Jewish gymnasium in the city and two weeklies in Yiddish – one Zionist, and the other Zionist-Revisionist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Vloẓlavek ve-ha-Sevivah, Sefer Zikkaron (1967, Heb. and partly Yid.); Y. Trunk, in: Bleter far Geshikhte, 2 (1949), 64–166; Yoyvel-Bukh fun Branch 611 Arbeter Ring (1951).
Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.