Located in the Poznań province west of Łódź, Kalisz was for centuries a border town between Poland and Germany.

The oldest city in Poland, Kalisz also played a pivotal role in Polish Jewish history: in 1264, Bolesław the Pious, ruler of the western part of Poland (Wielkopolska), was the first to grant a charter to the local Jewish community, giving them settlement rights, legal protection, and certain religious and financial freedoms.

Coins from the area stamped with names in Hebrew letters reveal that Jewish minters were active in the town during the 12th century.

The Kalisz Jewish community played an important role in the Council of the Four Lands, the supracommunal body that represented Polish Jewry to the king.

Jews made their living as moneylenders, craftsmen, and import-export merchants dealing in livestock, horses, agricultural products and textiles.

The Jewish merchants of Kalisz played an important role at the international fairs in the German cities of Leipzig and Breslau.

At that time Jews constituted 40 percent of the population of Kalisz; they dominated the textile trade and made up half the craftsmen in the town.

During the first year of World War I, the invading German army destroyed 95% of Kalisz in a deliberate act committed on a defenceless city and killed 33 Jews.

On this bridge business deals were closed; the unemployed stood and hoped to be chosen for a few hours' work; people gave and listened to political speeches and arguments; vendors sold snacks and drinks.

Kanonicka Street was also a heavily Jewish area and served as the home of the kehillah (community governing body) offices.

Young people hung out at the Café George, where members of all the Jewish youth movements could mingle—or, when politics dictated, sit at separate tables.

The town had an active antisemitic press, and bands of ruffians would often attack Jewish traders and peddlers on isolated roads as they were making their way to area markets.

The situation deteriorated to the point that in 1936 a delegation of merchants traveled to Warsaw to present their case to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Interior.

In 1937, Jews were forced to set up shop in a separate area in the town market, and Polish nationalists stood guard to ensure that Christians did not patronize Jewish-owned stalls.

Even after intensive lobbying, the Kalisz slaughterers were permitted to produce only a small amount of kosher meat, which did not suffice for the Jewish population.

In the interwar period, Kalisz, which had a long history of producing lace and other textiles, became a center for the garment industry.

Since Jewish workers constituted 45 percent of all wage-earners in Kalisz, it is not surprising that Jews played an important role in the town's trade unions.

The association for female domestic workers helped to ensure fair treatment, decent wages, and a rest day on the Sabbath.

As the economy deteriorated—and as the Polish government continued to adopt anti-Jewish economic policies—many industrial workers were forced into petty commerce or peddling with few prospects for a meaningful livelihood.

The socialist Zionist party Poale Zion sponsored a "Worker's Home" club, which organized lectures, Hebrew classes, and performances and offered a library and reading room to members.

Jews were also active in general political life, with eleven Jewish residents elected to the municipal council as late as 1939.

During the interwar period, two Yiddish schools were established by the labor Zionist Poale Zion group and the secular socialist "Bund."

After moving to Kalisz as a newlywed, she published her poetry in various journals and periodicals, including a cycle of poems on biblical women, the first of its kind in Yiddish.

Throughout Europe, sports had become an important part of Jewish life, as the political theories of the period stressed the cultivation of the body as well as the spirit and the mind.

President of the Rabbinical Association of Poland, a Zionist, and a friend of Chief Rabbi of Palestine Abraham Isaac Kook, Livshits was a force for solidarity and unity in the Kalisz community owing to his character and high standing.

Besides Ger, which counted ten shtieblakh (small prayer houses) in the town, other Hasidic groups represented in Kalisz were Alexander, Sochaczow, Skiernewicz, Kotzk, Sokolow, Parisow, and Radomsk.

There were so many shtieblakh in Kalisz that some non-Hasidic or non-religious Jews reportedly even closed their windows on Friday nights to escape the loud singing.