What happened to Sokółka under occupation?

The book recalls the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, German entry, and the subsequent arrival of Soviet forces. A second German occupation began in 1941, after which persecution of Jews intensified.

During Sukkot in 1941, Jewish residents were ordered to move into the ghetto, whose gate and German police guard hut stood on Białystok Street. The ghetto transformed a town-wide community into a forcibly controlled and enclosed population.

The ghetto contained a felt factory producing military orders and employing about two hundred men, as well as a shoemaking workshop. These workplaces offered labor within a system of coercion, not freedom, and later became connected to deportations.

Most Jews were transferred from the ghetto to Kolbasin after 1942, and a November 1942 selection separated residents for a new work location. In January 1943, the remaining prisoners were ordered deported toward Auschwitz; approximately four hundred factory workers were deported on January 23, with six reported to have survived.

The memorial book reports that most deportees arriving at Auschwitz were sent to gas chambers and burned on January 25, 1943; another transport was reportedly destroyed in early January. It also records the burning of approximately two thousand Jews in Białystok in August 1943, including Zindel Chinski from Sokółka.