Leoncin is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in Nowy Dwór County,

Masovian Voivodeship The Masovian Voivodeship, also known as the Mazovia Province ( pl, województwo mazowieckie ) is a voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, with its capital located in the city of Warsaw, which also serves as the capital of the country. The ...

, in east-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Leoncin. Leoncin is approximately north-west of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

. It has a

neogothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

church from 1885, as well as a wooden chapel dating from the end of the 18th century that is located at a nearby cemetery. It is also famous for being the birthplace of

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

20th century

The Jewish community of Leoncin during the partitions of Poland was relatively small, totalling about 30 business families, some cultivating orchards, others running taverns or involved in manufacture.

was born in Leoncin circa 1903, and lived in the village with his father, Pinchas, mother Bathsheba, brothers Israel Joshua Singer and Moishe, and sister Esther Kreitman. Twin sisters were also born here in 1902, but died of scarlet fever in 1906, the same year the family moved to Radzymin. Jews were expelled by the Russians during World War I. Only seven of them were allowed to bring their personal possessions thanks to a protest by a New York rabbi, others were not. The Jews returned to Leoncin after the rebirth of sovereign Poland. In 1921, there were 149

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...

in the village according to the census, some 51.7 percent of the population. In the following years, due in part to economic difficulties as well as Zionist agitation, many left in search of greener pastures.Jewish Community in Leoncin
on

Virtual Shtetl The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland. History The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June ...

. Retrieved 2 October 2015. During

the Holocaust in occupied Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holoca ...

, in the winter of 194041 the remaining Jewish inhabitants of Leoncin were deported to a transit ghetto in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki and from there, to an

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

References

{{Gmina Leoncin Villages in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki County Holocaust locations in Poland