Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern

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 populou ...

with 19,365 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, near Roztocze National Park, it is the capital of

Tomaszów Lubelski County Tomaszów may refer to the following places in Poland: * Tomaszów Bolesławiecki, village in Lower Silesian Voivodeship * Tomaszów, Lublin Voivodeship, village in Puławy County * Tomaszów Lubelski County, county in Lublin Voivodeship ** Tomas ...

History

The town was founded at the end of the 16th century by Jan Zamoyski as Jelitowo. It is known by its current name since 1613 when it was renamed after Zamoyski's son,

Tomasz Tomasz is a Polish given name, the equivalent of Thomas in English. Notable people with the given name include: *Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish heavyweight boxer * Tomasz Arciszewski (1877–1955), Polish socialist politician and Prime Minis ...

. It obtained its city charter in 1621. It was administratively located in the Bełz Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of Poland. The area around the city saw serious fighting in 1914 during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. On September 17–26, 1939, during 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 af ...

which started

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski was fought between Poland and Germany. The town was bombed by the Germans and eventually found itself 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 ...

. The town's

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 ...

community, which numbered over 5,600 in 1939 at the start of the war, was persecuted by the occupiers in 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; ...

. The Nazi Germans first placed the Jews in a ghetto established in the town, then exterminated them in 1942 at Bełżec extermination camp located a few km. south of the town. The Jewish community ceased to exist. In 1975–1998, the town was administratively located in the Zamość Voivodeship.

Education

In the town there are two faculties of

Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin ( pl, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, la, Universitas Catholica Lublinensis Ioannis Pauli II, abbreviation KUL), established in 1918. It is the only private college in Poland with the s ...

(Legal and Economic Sciences). It has two high schools (Bartosz Głowacki High School and Władysław Sikorski High School), three technical colleges, two gymnasiums and two primary schools.

Culture

''International Folk Festival Roztocze'' is a popular annual music festival organized since 1990. Since 2008 the town council organizes reconstructions of Battle of Tomaszów.

Sports

Tomaszów is the home for the football team Tomasovia.

Media

There are two main newspapers published weekly in Tomaszów Lubelski. First of them, ''ReWizje Tomaszowskie'', is financed by the town council. Second of them, ''Tygodnik Tomaszowski'', belongs to a private company.

Twin towns

Tomaszów Lubelski is twinned with: * Grigiškės, Lithuania * Kivertsi, Ukraine * Zhovkva, Ukraine

Notable people

* Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801–1854), Hasidic thinker *

Joanna Pacuła Joanna Pacuła (; born 30 December 1957) is a Polish-American actress and model. Born in Tomaszów Lubelski and emigrating to the United States in the early 1980s, she first gained prominence through her modeling work for Vogue. Her breakthrou ...

(born 1957), actress * Leon Pinsker (1821–1891), Zionist activist *

Zygmunt Sochan Zygmunt Sochan (24 December 1909 – 5 February 1998) was a Polish footballer who played as a midfielder, manager, and member of the Polish resistance movement in World War II. Early life Sochan was born and grew up in Tomaszów Lubelski. In hi ...

(1909–1998), footballer and member of the Polish resistance movement in World War II * Monika Skinder (born 2001), cross-country skier * Marek Zub (born 1964), football manager * Wojciech Żukowski (born 1964), member of the parliament, Law and Justice

External links

Tomaszów County website

Tomaszów virtual tour

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomaszow Lubelski Cities and towns in Lublin Voivodeship Tomaszów Lubelski County 16th-century establishments in Poland Populated places established in the 16th century Lublin Governorate Kholm Governorate Lublin Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland