Tiktin Poland

 

Our first destination will be Tiktin Poland. Tiktin was the Yiddish name of the city; the Poles call it Tykocin. The first Jews to live in Tiktin came there in 1522. Tiktin was on the Polish border with the Kingdom of Lithuania which was at that time a very big country. Eventually Tiktin became part of Russia and after World War I part of Poland again.

 

 

Did you know that Tiktin was a major center of business because the Narew River ran right through the city? Before cars trucks and trains were invented people transported goods on small boats and log rafts from Russia all the way to Warsaw (the capital of Poland) through the Narew River. However when trains came to Poland in the 1800s goods started to be moved by train so fewer and fewer people used the Narew River to ship their products. Jews started to move from Tiktin to other cities. There was however always a Jewish presence there until 1941 when the Nazis invaded.