Saint Anthony church Stawiski was established in 1407–1411. It received
town rights around 1688. The
Franciscan Order built a
monastery there in 1791. Following the
Third Partition of Poland, the town was annexed by
Prussia. In 1807, it was regained by Poles and included within the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw, and after the dissolution of the duchy in 1815, the town became part of
Russian-controlled Congress Poland. The town was destroyed by fire in 1812 in the course of the French
campaign against Russia, and rebuilt again, to become a trade and commercial centre known for its furs, fabrics and hats in Congress Poland. Local monks were expelled from Stawiski in 1867 during, as punishment for supporting the Polish
January Uprising against the
Russian imperial rule. Stawiski burned to the ground once more during the Russian–German war of 1915, soon before the re-establishment of the sovereign
Republic of Poland. The
Polish army fought a battle against
Soviet Russia there in July 1920 during the
Polish-Soviet War. During the German-Soviet
invasion of Poland which started
World War II in September 1939, the town was captured by Germany, and then handed over to the Soviet Union in accordance with the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. It was then occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, and Germany until 1944. Afterwards it was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the
Fall of Communism in the end of the 1980s. On 6 May 1945, the
Polish anti-communist resistance clashed with Soviet officers in Stawiski. In 1945–1947, the resistance also carried out four raids on the local communist police station. From 1946 to 1975 it belonged administratively to
Białystok Voivodeship, and from 1975 to 1998 to
Łomża Voivodeship.
Jewish community . In the background, the church of St. Anthony and the Great Synagogue. Jewish life in Stawiski had been separate from that of the rest of the town's inhabitants. The Jews had established many institutions of their own, including synagogues and Jewish schools and libraries. By 1932, over 50% of Stawiski's population, some 2,000 persons, was
Jewish. During the
Invasion of Poland in September 1939, Stawiski was initially occupied by
Germany. During the month-long German occupation, German soldiers raped Jewish women and plundered Jewish property. Some Poles who had been ordered to supervise Jewish labor brigades humiliated the conscripted workers. After a Stawiski priest blamed the Jews for the murder of some German soldiers, the Germans executed several Jews, burned down the small synagogue or perhaps a
bet midrash, and set fire to part of the town. The Germans deported a group of able-bodied male Jews (and Christians) to
forced labor camps in East Prussia. After some three weeks, the Germans
passed control of Stawiski to Soviet forces. Soviet rule lasted until the Germans returned to the town in June 1941 during
Operation Barbarossa. Local Poles welcomed the arriving Germans with flowers, and German army scouts who arrived on 27 June noted the Poles' hatred for Jews. Local Poles, mostly recently released from Soviet prisons, asked German permission to take revenge on the Jews and killed some. In early July 1941 the Germans instigated a pogrom in which Polish mobs armed with iron bars murdered some 300 Jews. Some Poles were motivated by revenge against earlier Soviet supporters. A German
Einsatzkommando was present in the town during 4–5 July 1941. A similar, better known, atrocity took place on 10 July 1941 in nearby
Jedwabne. Beginning on 17 August 1941, the Germans executed most of Stawiski's Jewish community. Some 900 able-bodied Jews were killed in a ditch near
Mątwica, where Jewish women and children from
Kolno and Jews from
Mały Płock were also executed. Some 700 persons, mostly infants, elderly, and handicapped, were killed in Płaszczatka (or Stawiski) Forest. Some 60 to 105 Jews remained, mainly skilled workers and their families, who were confined to a
ghetto. Some Jews from Stawiski who survived in hiding sought refuge in the
Łomża Ghetto, others remained hidden until permitted by the Germans to work as farm laborers. On 2 November 1942 the ghetto was closed and its occupants were transferred to a transit camp in
Bogusze, and from there were sent to the
Auschwitz and
Treblinka extermination camps. Some 50 Stawiski Jews managed to evade deportation, but most of them were found and executed in subsequent
searches. Some of the hiding Jews were denounced by Poles, and at least 11 of them were murdered by local Poles in nearby
Mały Płock gmina. Only a few of the 2,000 pre-war Jewish inhabitants of Stawiski survived the
Holocaust. Some of the Stawiski Jews murdered during the war are buried in a mass grave at the . ==Demographics==