Wąsosz 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 ...

Grajewo County __NOTOC__ Grajewo County ( pl, powiat grajewski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Podlaskie Voivodeship, north-eastern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government ...

Podlaskie Voivodeship Podlaskie Voivodeship or Podlasie Province ( pl, Województwo podlaskie, ) is a voivodeship (province) in northeastern Poland. The name of the province and its territory correspond to the historic region of Podlachia. The capital and largest cit ...

, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' , from German ''Gemeinde'' meaning ''commune'') is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,477 gminas throughout the country, encompassing over 4 ...

(administrative district) called Gmina Wąsosz. It lies approximately south-west of

Grajewo Grajewo (, yi, גראיעווע, translit=Grayavah) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 21,499 inhabitants (2016). It is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship (since 1999); previously, it was in Łomża Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the ...

and north-west of the regional capital

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

. Wąsosz received

city 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 ...

from Prince Władysław on 13 May 1436, and lost them in 1870 under the Russian rule following the Partitions. The already well-developed town was destroyed in the

Swedish Deluge The Deluge ( pl, potop szwedzki, lt, švedų tvanas) was a series of mid-17th-century military campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce ...

of 1655-1656 and then rebuilt. The Town Hall was erected in 1789. Almost all of the streets were paved at around the same time. The

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

monastery was established in Wąsosz as far back as 1605, but was closed in 1864 by the authorities in reprisal for help offered by monks to victims of 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 ...

. They were sent to

Katorga Katorga ( rus, ка́торга, p=ˈkatərɡə; from medieval and modern Greek: ''katergon, κάτεργον'', "galley") was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisoner ...

chained by the neck.Wąsosz - Zamierzchłe czasy.

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

On the night between 4 and 5 July 1941, during the Nazi invasion into Eastern Poland and the USSR, a small group of people murdered several dozens of the Jewish inhabitants of Wąsosz, in what is called the Wąsosz pogrom. One of the most impressive points of interest in Wąsosz is its late

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church from 1508, with three altars adorned with religious paintings. It is at the Old Market Square.

References

Villages in Grajewo County Łomża Governorate Białystok Voivodeship (1919–1939) Belastok Region Holocaust locations in Poland {{Grajewo-geo-stub