Sprowa 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 Słupia, within

Jędrzejów County __NOTOC__ Jędrzejów County ( pl, powiat jędrzejowski) 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 l ...

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 west of

Słupia Słupia () is a river in north-western Poland, a tributary of the Baltic Sea, with a length of 138 kilometres and the basin area of 1,623 km². Towns: * Słupsk * Ustka See also: Rivers of Poland, List of rivers of Europe This articl ...

, west of Jędrzejów, and south-west 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 ...

. The village has a population of 370.

History

Within the Kingdom of Poland, Sprowa was a private village of

Polish nobility The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...

, including the Odrowąż and Szczepanowski families. After 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 ...

, Sprowa fell to the

Russian Partition The Russian Partition ( pl, zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Po ...

of Poland in 1815. During the

January Uprising The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...

, on December 4, 1863, a battle was fought at Sprowa between Polish insurgents and Russian troops. In 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the village. During the

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 ...

(

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 ...

), a local Polish farmer, Jan Molenda, hid 23

Jews 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 ...

from Szczekociny, Raszków,

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

, Dąbrowica and

on his farm in 1942–1943, including three families with children (see

Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust Polish Jews were the primary victims of the German-organized Holocaust in Poland. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Poles rescued Jews from the Holocaust, in the process risking their lives – and the lives of their families. Po ...

). The Germans discovered the hideout, murdered 18 captured Jews on the spot, and arrested Molenda, who then escaped from prison in Jędrzejów, and hid from the Germans until the end of the occupation.

Notable people

Jan Sprowski Jan ze Sprowy (?-1464) Jan Sprowski or as John of Odrowąż (John Odrowąż from Sprowa) was a 15th-century Roman Catholic Archbishop of Gniezno, and Primate of Poland and Lithuania.Primate of Poland This is a list of archbishops of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, who are simultaneously primates of Poland since 1418.Sprowa Sprowa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Słupia, within Jędrzejów County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It lies approximately west of Słupia, west of Jędrzejów, and south-west of the regiona ...

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