Radziłów

Radziłów ([raˈd͡ʑiwuf]; Yiddish: ראַדזשילעווע, romanized: Rodzilova) is a village (formerly a town) in Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland.

Among the first settlers were bee-keepers, fishermen, hunters and loggers, who sold honey, wax, fish and lumber to neighboring towns, Wizna and Goniądz.

Located at a trading route between Wizna and Wąsosz, it became a commercial center for bakers, shoemakers, tailors, butchers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, cooper-makers and potters.

The main square in Radziłów at the time (180 m × 120 m in size) was bigger than in Warsaw (70 m × 94 m) and in Płock (140 m × 70 m) and held two weekly markets, on Monday and on Sunday (from 17th century on) as well as a fair on Wednesday added by king Władysław IV in 1641.

[4] The Germans appointed Józef Mordasiewicz and Leon Kosmaczewski as heads of the local collaborationist administration.

Over the next few weeks the Jews of Radziłów, as well as refugees from other villages who had taken up residence in town, were tormented by the German troops and some Poles.

[3] On 28 January 1945 (five days after Soviet forces liberated the town), local Poles murdered two Jews who had survived in hiding.

Hermann Schaper, whose SS unit was involved in some of the atrocities in Radziłów, was tried in Germany in 1976 for other crimes against Poles and Jews and was sentenced to six years in prison, however following an appeal this was overturned and his health was declared too fragile for a new trial.

The Kowalski Forge in Radziłów, 1920s