Michniów 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 ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Suchedniów __NOTOC__ Gmina Suchedniów is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Skarżysko County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. Its seat is the town of Suchedniów, which lies approximately south-west of Skarżysko-Kami ...

, within

Skarżysko County __NOTOC__ Skarżysko County ( pl, powiat skarżyski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local ...

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship The Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, also known as the Świętokrzyskie Province, and the Holy Cross Voivodeship ( pl, województwo świętokrzyskie ) is a voivodeship (province) of Poland situated in southeastern part of the country, in the histo ...

, in south-central Poland. It lies approximately south of

Suchedniów Suchedniów is a town in Skarżysko County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering ...

, south-west of

Skarżysko-Kamienna Skarżysko-Kamienna is a city in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in south-central Poland by Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major cities. Prior to 1928, it bore the name of ''Kamienna''; i ...

, and north-east of the regional capital

Kielce Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...

Michniów massacre

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 opposin ...

, the region of Michniów was occupied by the Germans from September 1939 until January 1945. Under

the occupation ''The Occupation'' is a single-player adventure video game developed by White Paper Games and released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on 5 March 2019. The game takes place in a single government building, in real-time over fou ...

, it was one of the local centres of the Polish

underground resistance Underground Resistance (commonly abbreviated to UR) are an American musical collective from Detroit, Michigan. Producing primarily Detroit techno since 1990 with a grungy four-track musical aesthetic, they are also renowned for their militant p ...

movement. On 12–13 July 1943, the population of Michniów was massacred by the German Police units of the 17th and the 22nd Police Regiments,Michnów Mausoleum
at Muzeum Wsi Kieleckiej commanded by Hauptmann Gerulf Mayer,Bogdan Hildebrandt (in Polish), ''Partyzantka na Kielecczyźnie 1939-1945'', Wydawnictwo MON, Warsaw 1970, p. 173-174 in punishment for the partisan activity in the area. In the first massacre, on 12 July 1943, 98 men were burned alive locked in barns. The same night, the partisans headed by

Jan Piwnik Jan Piwnik (31 August 1912 – 16 June 1944) was a Polish World War II soldier, a ''cichociemny'' and a notable leader of the Home Army in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. He used the nickname ''Ponury'' ("Gloomy" or "Grim") and ''Donat''. Biogr ...

"Ponury", made a retaliatory assault on a German train from Kraków to Warsaw. The Germans returned to the village the next day and committed a second punitive massacre. During two days, at least 203 inhabitants were killed: 103 men, 53 women and 47 children. After ad hoc investigation, a further 11 persons, the only ones suspected by the Germans of underground activities, were sent to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

, where 6 died. The village was then completely burned. After the war, Michniów was resettled again. The village became one of the best-known symbols of the Nazi German atrocities committed in rural Poland, although there were several greater massacres. From early 1980s, on the initiative of the ''

Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce 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 ...

'' a museum and a mausoleum to all Polish pacified villages was built in Michniów.

References

External links

Michnów
at Muzeum Wsi Kieleckiej (Kielce Regional Folk Museum), retrieved 19-7-2010. {{Authority control Villages in Skarżysko County