During the 1650’s Tykocin was hardly hit by the wars with Sweden. Unfortunately the castle was destroyed as well as the city of Tykocin. Tykocin was quickly rebuilt and as time went by the economy went up again. Through my family I’ve been told that this is how Tykocin got its name.  “Tyko” means only and “Cin” means shadow, so when the Swedens invaded Tykocin they said that after they will leave this town “only a shadow will be left”. By the 1800’s 70% of the citizens of Tykocin were Jewish and the 30% of course Polish.

In the 1900’s specifically before the wars (World War I and World War II) Tykocin’s trade market was primarily involved with Bialystok (A City which today is bigger than Tykocin).  Before World War II the population of Jewish citizens decreased by a small number. Unfortunately it was heard what was happening to the Jewish people of  Poland under the Nazi power and many Jewish communities decreased by a small amount. Before World War II there were 5,000 citizens living in Tykocin. Half of them Polish and half of them Jewish.

WORLD WAR II

 On September 2, 1939 German units of the Wermacht entered Tykocin. On the first day of the German presence, all men both Jewish and Polish were locked up without food in a local church by the Germans. When all of these men were locked up, German troops damaged many Jewish buildings. On Yom Kippur September 24, 1939, German troops robbed Jewish shops and left the town under the agreement of the Soviet Union. After this incident Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union. Since Tykocin is close to the Russian border, many Russians stayed in Tykocin. In the spring of 1941 Wermacht troops invaded the Russians forcing them to leave. Many battles between the Russians and the German troops took place around the neighborhoods of Tykocin. At the end of June in 1941 German troops entered Tykocin again, This time making all the Jewish people wear white clothes with the star of David on the side. Many of people both Jewish and Polish were forced to labor and many were sent to concentration camps (Members of my family were sent to labor camps go to the “Interview” page to see more information)