Markowa 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 ...
in
Łańcut County
__NOTOC__
Łańcut County ( pl, powiat łańcucki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, south-eastern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local gove ...
,
Subcarpathian Voivodeship
Subcarpathian Voivodeship or Subcarpathia Province (in pl, Województwo podkarpackie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshall, it i ...
, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the
gmina (administrative district) called
Gmina Markowa. It lies approximately south-east of
Łańcut
Łańcut (, approximately "wine-suit"; yi, לאַנצוט, Lantzut; uk, Ла́ньцут, Lánʹtsut; german: Landshut) is a town in south-eastern Poland, with 18,004 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. Situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (si ...
and east of the regional capital
Rzeszów
Rzeszów ( , ; la, Resovia; yi, ריישא ''Raisha'')) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów has been the capital of the Subcarpathian ...
.
The village has a population of 4,100.
History
The village was founded in the 14th century by the
Polish noble family of Pilecki, and was settled by the descendants of Germans colonists, who called it ''Markhof''. The Pileckis also founded a Catholic parish in the village.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
it was under
German occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...
.
On 24 March 1944 a patrol of German police came to the house of
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma were a Polish Catholic husband and wife in Markowa, Poland during the Nazi German occupation in World War II who attempted to rescue Polish Jewish families by hiding them in their own home during the Holocaust. They an ...
, where they found eight Jewish members of the Szall and Goldman families. At first the Germans executed all the Jews. Then they shot the pregnant Wiktoria and her husband. When the six children began to scream at the sight of their parents' bodies, Joseph Kokott, a German police officer (
Volksdeutsche
In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
from
Sudetenland), shot them after consulting with his superior. The other killers were Eilert Dieken, Michael Dziewulski and Erich Wilde. Afterwards the Germans robbed the house and workshop of the Ulma family and organized an alcoholic libation.
On the 60th anniversary of this tragedy, a memorial was erected in memory of the family. Other Polish families also
hid Jews in Markowa, and at least 17 Jews survived the German occupation and the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
in five Polish homes.
[
The is located in the village.]
See also
* Walddeutsche
Walddeutsche (lit. "Forest Germans" or ''Taubdeutsche'' – "Deaf Germans"; pl, Głuchoniemcy – "deaf Germans") was the name for a group of German-speaking people, originally used in the 16th century for two language islands around Łańcut a ...
* Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi Germany, German-organized The Holocaust in Poland, Holocaust in Poland. Throughout the German occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupation of Poland, many Poles rescued Jews from the Holocaust, ...
References
Bibliography
The Righteous and their world. Markowa through the lens of Józef Ulma, by Mateusz Szpytma
Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
, Poland
* Franciszek Kotula, "Pochodzenie domów przysłupowych w Rzeszowskiem." ''Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej'' Jahr. V., Nr. 3/4, 1957, S. 557
Notes
External links
Story of the survival of the Riesenbach family
* Gisele Hildebrandt, Otto Adamski. Dorfimfersuchungen in dem alten deutsch-ukrainischen Grenzbereich von Landshuf. 1943. 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 ...
Markowa
{{Authority control
Villages in Łańcut County
14th-century establishments in Poland
Populated places established in the 14th century