Borzęcin 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 ...

Brzesko County __NOTOC__ Brzesko County ( pl, powiat brzeski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government r ...

Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship or Lesser Poland Province (in pl, województwo małopolskie ), also known as Małopolska, is a voivodeship (province), in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). It was created on 1 ...

, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' , from German ''Gemeinde'' meaning ''commune'') is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,477 gminas throughout the country, encompassing over 4 ...

(administrative district) called Gmina Borzęcin. It lies approximately north-east of

Brzesko Brzesko (; yi, בריגעל, ''Brigel'') is a town in southern Poland, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It lies approximately west of Tarnów and east of the regional capital Kraków. Since Polish administrative reorganization (in 1999), Brzesko ...

and east of the regional capital

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. It is located on the Uszwica river and divided into two

sołectwo A sołectwo (Polish plural: ''sołectwa'') is an administrative unit in Poland, an optional subdivision of a gmina. The actions and organs of the sołectwo are decided by the gmina council. On 31 December 2018 Poland had 40 740 sołectwa. Go ...

s, Upper Borzęcin and Lower Borzęcin. Currently it has a population of about 3,700 inhabitants.

History

The village is mentioned in historical documents for the first time in 1475 by the Polish chronicler

Jan Długosz Jan Długosz (; 1 December 1415 – 19 May 1480), also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first histor ...

in his ''

Liber beneficiorum In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber ( , ; "the free one"), also known as Liber Pater ("the free Father"), was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of th ...

'', a register of church property for tax purposes. Długosz states that the village was founded on unpopulated land in 1364 by the

Bishop of Kraków A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, Bodzanta Jankowski, and named after him as "Bodzantin". This later turned into its current name when Austrian authorities recorded the village as "Borzecin" during the

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

. The founding of the village was based on

Magdeburg law Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within c ...

, and all the settlers where Slavs. Each one was given one

łan Łan (in English ''lan''; in Latin ''laneus'', in German ''Lahn''), is an old unit of field measurement used in Poland. Since the 13th century, its value has varied from one location to another. A ''greater łan'' (also Franconian, King's, Old ...

, or about 25 hectares of land. Later settlers arrived from Germany and

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

. Tax records from 1536 list 87 male peasants, and records attest to the existence of a local church school by 1596. Until 1782 the village was the property of the bishops of Kraków. Borzęcin was pillaged by Swedish and

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

n forces during the period of Polish history known as the "Deluge". After the First partition of Poland in 1772 it became part of the

Austrian partition The Austrian Partition ( pl, zabór austriacki) comprise the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired by the Habsburg monarchy during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The three partition (politics), p ...

. In the 1830s the village lost one sixth of its population due to a cholera epidemic, a destructive flood and a local famine. The last serfs were

manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

ed in 1848. Polish dramatist and author

Sławomir Mrożek Sławomir Mrożek (29 June 1930 – 15 August 2013) was a Polish dramatist, writer and cartoonist. Mrożek joined the Polish United Workers' Party during the reign of Stalinism in the People's Republic of Poland, and made a living as a politica ...

was born in Borzęcin in 1930. During World War II, 143 inhabitants of the village were killed, including 64 in

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

. Of those 43 were Jews. Additionally the Germans murdered 28

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council *Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

from a nearby community in Lower Borzęcin itself, and several hundred more in the nearby village of

Szczurowa Szczurowa is a village in Brzesko County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Szczurowa. It lies approximately north of Brzesko and east of the regional capital Krak ...

in the

Szczurowa massacre The massacre in Szczurowa was the murder of 93 Romani people, including children, women and the elderly, by German Nazi occupiers in the Polish village of Szczurowa on 3 August 1943. Between ten and twenty families of settled Romani had lived in ...

References

External links

*
Jewish Community in Borzęcin
on Virtual Shtetl {{DEFAULTSORT:Borzecin, Lesser Poland Voivodeship Villages in Brzesko County Holocaust locations in Poland