Pabianice is a city in central

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

with 63,023 inhabitants (2021). Situated in the

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship (also known as Lodz Province, or by its Polish name ''Województwo łódzkie'' ) is a province-voivodeship in central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Łódź Voivodeship (1975–1999) and the Sieradz ...

, it is the capital of Pabianice County. It lies about southwest of Łódź and belongs to the

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...

of that city. It is the third largest city in the Łódź Voivodeship by population. The area of the city covers being the 10th largest in Łódź Voivodeship. According to data from 2009 Pabianice covers with following split: agricultural land: 53%, forests: 9%. The city covers 6.70% of Pabianice County. Neighbour administrative divisions: gmina Dobroń, gmina Ksawerów, miasto Łódź,

gmina Pabianice __NOTOC__ Gmina Pabianice is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Pabianice County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. Its seat is the town of Pabianice, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina. The gmina covers an a ...

, gmina Rzgów.

Transportation

Pabianice has seen major infrastructural changes over the past few years amidst increased investment and economic growth. The city has a much improved infrastructure with new roads. Pabianice now has a good circular road system. Pabianice bypass (express road S14) opened in May 2012. However, parts of S8 (part of the

European route E67 European route E 67 is an E-road running from Prague in the Czech Republic to Estonia and by ferry to Finland. It goes via Prague, Wrocław, Warsaw, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki. The route is known as the Via Baltic ...

) are currently under construction and to be completed within 2012. Near Pabianice there is an international airport:

Łódź Władysław Reymont Airport Lodz Airport Central Poland , formerly known as ''Łódź-Lublinek Airport'', is a regional airport in central Poland, located approximately southwest of Łódź city center. Łódź ranked 8th among Polish airports in 2013 in passenger numbers ...

(IATA: LCJ, ICAO: EPLL) located just from the city centre. Public transport in Pabianice includes buses, trams (streetcars), commuter railway Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna and regional rail PKP

Przewozy Regionalne Polregio (formerly ''Przewozy Regionalne'') is a train operator in Poland, responsible for local and interregional passenger transportation. Each day it runs approximately 3,000 regional trains. In 2002 it carried 215 million passengers. The ...

. The regional rail and light rail is operated by Polish State Railways (PKP). There are also some suburban bus lines run by private operators. Bus service covers the entire city. Currently, the Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne (City Transport Company) company runs line number 41 which connects Pabianice with Łódź City.

History

Pabianice was established in the 10th or 11th century, and was part of early

Piast The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented List of Polish monarchs, Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I of Poland, Mieszko I (c. 930–992). The Poland during the Piast dynasty, Piasts' royal rule i ...

-ruled

. In 1297,

Władysław I Łokietek Władysław I Łokietek, in English known as the "Elbow-high" or Ladislaus the Short (c. 1260/12 March 1333), was King of Poland from 1320 to 1333, and duke of several of the provinces and principalities in the preceding years. He was a member of ...

granted

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

. Pabianice was a private church town, administratively located in the Sieradz Voivodeship in the

Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown , subdivision = Province , nation = Poland , year_start = , event_end = Third Partition of Poland , year_end = , image_map = Prowincje I RP.svg , image_map_capt ...

. In 1555, Polish King

Sigismund II Augustus Sigismund II Augustus ( pl, Zygmunt II August, lt, Žygimantas Augustas; 1 August 1520 – 7 July 1572) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the son of Sigismund I the Old, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548. He was the first ruler ...

issued a privilege, which established craft guilds in Pabianice. Kosciol NMP

Before

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 ...

, Pabianice had a substantial

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

population, comprising about a quarter of all residents of the town. Jews had been living in the town since the 1700s. Following the joint German-Soviet

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, which started World War II in September 1939, the town 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 ...

. As part of the ''

Intelligenzaktion The ''Intelligenzaktion'' (), or the Intelligentsia mass shootings, was a series of mass murders which was committed against the Polish intelligentsia (teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society) early in the ...

'', in late 1939, the Germans carried out mass arrests of local

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

, who were initially imprisoned in a local transit camp and the nearby Radogoszcz concentration camp, and then either deported to other

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

or mostly murdered in nearby forests. Local Polish teachers and activists were murdered by the Germans during large massacres in the nearby Łagiewniki forest (within today's city limits of Łódź) in November and December 1939. The Germans also expelled around 1,000 Poles from the town in December 1939. Under German occupation nearly the entire Jewish population was murdered. Some were murdered in the town, several thousand were sent to the

Chełmno extermination camp , known for = , location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland) , built by = , operated by = , commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth , original use = , construction = , in operation ...

where they were immediately gassed, and others were expelled to Łódź and to

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

camps in the area. Only about 150 survived of the 9,000 Jews thought to be living in Pabianice at the start of the war. For more on the wartime experience see Megargee. The German occupation ended in 1945.

Demography

Recently, the population of Pabianice has been steadily decreasing. Between 2002 and 2016 it fell from 72,444 to 66,265 (a decrease of about 400 people every year). ImageSize = width:550 height:250 PlotArea = left:70 right:40 top:20 bottom:40 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify Colors = id:gray1 value:gray(0.9) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:75668 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10000 start:0 gridcolor:gray1 TextData = pos:(190,20) textcolor:black fontsize:M text:Historical population of Pabianice (in thousands) PlotData = bar:1939 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:53000 width:15 text:53,0 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1946 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:37140 width:15 text:37,1 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1950 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:48817 width:15 text:48,8 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1955 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:51671 width:15 text:51,7 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1960 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:56222 width:15 text:56,2 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1965 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:59355 width:15 text:59,4 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1970 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:62402 width:15 text:62,4 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1975 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:66758 width:15 text:66,8 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1980 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:70487 width:15 text:70,5 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1985 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:72575 width:15 text:72,6 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1990 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:75247 width:15 text:75,3 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1995 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:75668 width:15 text:75,7 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2000 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:74270 width:15 text:74,3 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2005 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:70743 width:15 text:70,7 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2010 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:69303 width:15 text:69,6 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2015 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:66895 width:15 text:66,9 textcolor:red fontsize:8px

Unemployment

According to source data from 2009 average income per capita was on the level of 1844,96 PLN. According to source data from October 2011 average unemployment rate in Pabianice is on the level of 15,6% ImageSize = width:550 height:250 PlotArea = left:70 right:40 top:20 bottom:40 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify Colors = id:gray1 value:gray(0.9) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:9 till:22 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:9 gridcolor:gray1 TextData = pos:(190,20) textcolor:black fontsize:M text:Historical unemployment rate in Pabianice( percentage ) PlotData = bar:1999 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:13 width:25 text:12,99% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2000 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:16 width:25 text:15,99% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2001 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:18 width:25 text:18,14% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2002 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:20 width:25 text:20,08% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2003 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:20 width:25 text:20,85% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2004 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:21 width:25 text:21,59% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2005 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:19 width:25 text:19,52% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2006 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:17 width:25 text:17,58% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2007 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:13 width:25 text:13,27% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2008 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:10 width:25 text:10,23% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2009 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:12 width:25 text:12,12% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2010 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:13 width:25 text:13,92% textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2011 color:gray1 width:1 from:9 till:15 width:25 text:15,84% textcolor:red fontsize:8px

Architecture

# Church of St. Matthew the Evangelist #

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

fortified manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals wi ...

of Cracovian Chapter # Weaver houses (Domy tkaczy) # "Krusche-Ender" cotton factory buildings # Old offices "Krusche-Ender" with "prządki" sculpture # Old palace of Enders' family # Lutheran Church of St. Peter and St. Paul #

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Church of Saint Mary #

Railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

chapel near Ludwik Waryński St. (ruins) #

Maria Konopnicka Special Education School Complex Maria Konopnicka Special Education School Complex in Pabianice, Poland is one of the oldest special education schools in Poland. Named after Maria Konopnicka, the school was established around 1922 by teachers who were at once at the forefront of s ...

# Pabianicki Harvard Heureka Private Schools # Christian cemeteries # Jewish cemetery # Synagogue (destroyed)

Quarters and administrative subdivisions

Centrum, Bugaj, Piaski, Stare Miasto, Karniszewice, Klimkowizna, Jutrzkowice, Wola Zaradzyńska Nowa, J. Salwy, Marii Konopnickiej, Jana Pawła II, Mikołaja Kopernika, Dąbrowa, Rypułtowice, Czyryczyn (formerly Sereczyn), Karolew, Zatorze.

Sport

Notable people

* Menachem Mendel Alter (1877–1942), Grand Rabbi of Pabianice, son of Rabbi

Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter ( he, יהודה אריה ליב אלתר, 15 April 1847 – 11 January 1905), also known by the title of his main work, the ''Sfas Emes'' (Ashkenazic Pronunciation) or ''Sefat Emet'' (Modern Hebrew), was a Hasidic rabbi ...

and brother of Rabbi

Avraham Mordechai Alter Avraham Mordechai Alter ( pl, Abraham Mordekhaj Alter, he, אברהם מרדכי אלתר; 25 December 1865 – 3 June 1948), also known as the ''Imrei Emes'' after the works he authored, was the fourth Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Ger, a po ...

, murdered in

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

August 12, 1942. *

Paweł Janas Paweł Janas (; born 4 March 1953) is a Polish football manager and former footballer. Career Club He began his playing career for the Włókniarz Pabianice team in 1965, but later left the club in 1973. National team From 1976 to 1984, he wo ...

(born 1953), football player and coach * Mieczysław Klimek (1913–1995), Polish professor, engineer, prisoner of Nazi concentration camps during World War II *

Marcin Komorowski Marcin Komorowski (; born 17 April 1984) is a Polish former footballer. Career In June 2014, Komorowski signed a new two-year contract with FC Terek Grozny. International He made his first appearance in the Poland national team in a friendly a ...

(born 1984), football player * Krystyna Mikołajewska (born 1939), actress * (1877–1946), Polish painter * Józef Pluskowski (1896–1950), poet * Aleksandra Shelton (born 1982), sabre fencer * Stanisław Staszewski (1925–1973), Polish architect and poet, Polish resistance participant during World War II, prisoner of the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

* Jadwiga Wajs (1912–1990), discus thrower

International relations

Twin towns – sister cities

Pabianice is twinned with: *

Rokiškis Rokiškis () is a city in northeastern Lithuania with a population of about 14,400. History The legend of the founding of Rokiškis tells about a hunter called Rokas who had been hunting for hares ( Lit. "kiškis"). However, cities ending in "- ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

''(since 1998)'' *

Plauen Plauen (; Czech language, Czech: ''Plavno'') is, with around 65,000 inhabitants, the fifth-largest city of Saxony, Germany after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the larges ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

''(since 2005)'' *

Kerepes Kerepes is a village in Pest county, Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary. It has a population of 9,903 (2008). Notable people * Zoltán Sándor (born 1928), sports shooter Twin towns – sister cities Kerepes is twinned with: * Dealu, Roman ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

''(since 2009)'' Former twin towns: * Gusev in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

''(since 2002 until 2022)'' In March 2022, Pabianice ended its partnership with the Russian city of Gusev as a response to the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Łódź Voivodeship Pabianice County Piotrków Governorate Łódź Voivodeship (1919–1939)