Before World War II (1939–1945), Wielun had a large Jewish community (almost half of the local population), which was completely destroyed by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944.
Apart from a lengthy introduction in English, which includes a brief history of the town's Jewish community, the book is in Yiddish and in Hebrew.
M Mendlevitsh stresses the fact that Wielun was known to Jews as Wilojn or Wilohn — the latter being the preferred spelling in all "official Jewish community documents and records".
Despite entrenched hostility on the part of the Poles, which M Mendlevitsh mentions, the Jewish community thrived and its members "always took pride in their place of birth".
It was rebuilt by King Casimir the Great, who surrounded the town with a protective wall and co-opted it into the realm of the Polish Crown.
[6] 1913: The Pontnev tragedy is widely reported across Poland: a Jewish family is murdered by a Polish mob near Wielun.
[10] A succinct English language description of the war years, based on original German and survivor sources, can be found in Yad Vashem's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.
However, in the face of open — and sometimes violent — hostility on the part of the local Poles (according to detailed accounts in the Memorial Book), they soon leave the town, never to return.
Descendants of the Jews of Wielun can be found in North America, in Western Europe, and in Israel, among other parts of the world.