Lipsko is a town in 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 ...

, in northern

Lesser Poland Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a ...

Masovian Voivodeship The Masovian Voivodeship, also known as the Mazovia Province ( pl, województwo mazowieckie ) is a voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, with its capital located in the city of Warsaw, which also serves as the capital of the country. Th ...

. It is the capital of

Lipsko County __NOTOC__ Lipsko County ( pl, powiat lipski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Masovian Voivodeship, east-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government refor ...

. The population is 5,895 (2004). Lipsko’s coat of arms is the

Dębno Dębno (german: Neudamm) is a town in Myślibórz County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship in western Poland. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 13,443. After the Migration Period, the area was populated by West Slavic peoples sinc ...

, which was used by previous owners of the town.

Geography

Lipsko is located on two hills, divided by the Krępianka river.

History

First mention about it comes from April 1589, when the village belonged to the Krępski family. In 1613 it was granted town rights, and quickly developed, due to the location along the “oxen road”, from

Red Ruthenia Red Ruthenia or Red Rus' ( la, Ruthenia Rubra; '; uk, Червона Русь, Chervona Rus'; pl, Ruś Czerwona, Ruś Halicka; russian: Червонная Русь, Chervonnaya Rus'; ro, Rutenia Roșie), is a term used since the Middle Ages fo ...

to Greater Poland and

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

. In 1614, Holy Trinity Church was built, founded by Lord Mikołaj Oleśnicki. Lipsko was a

private town A private town is a town owned by a private person or a family. History of Private Towns in Poland In the history of Poland, private towns (''miasta prywatne'') were towns within the lands owned by magnates, bishops, knights, princes, etc. ...

, administratively located in the Radom County in the

Sandomierz Voivodeship Sandomierz Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo Sandomierskie, la, Palatinatus Sandomirensis) was a unit of administration and local government in Poland from the 14th century to the partitions of Poland in 1772–1795. It was part of the Lesser Polan ...

in the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland, In the 16th-18th centuries Lipsko belonged to various noble families - the Wolskis, Gostomskis, Oleśnickis, Denhoffs, Sanguszkos, and Kochanowskis. The Dębno coat of arms of the Oleśnicki family remains the town's coat of arms to this day. The town was annexed by

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polis ...

in 1795. It was regained by Poles following the Austro–Polish War of 1809, and included within the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw ( pl, Księstwo Warszawskie, french: Duché de Varsovie, german: Herzogtum Warschau), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during ...

. After the duchy's dissolution, in 1815, it 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 1868, as a punishment for participation of residents in the Polish January Uprising, the Russians took away Lipsko’s town rights, turning it into a village (Lipsko did not become a town again until 1958). After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the town. 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 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 opposing ...

in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany. The German occupiers committed mass murders and brutalized both the Christian

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 ...

and

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. At the beginning of the war, about 1,600 Jews lived in Lipsko, half the population. When the Germans occupied the town, on September 8, 1939, they shot several Jews, including the rabbi, and then burned alive 60 to 80 Jews in the synagogue. Later the Jewish population was forced into a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

and Jews from surrounding villages were brought there too. By October 1942, there were 3,600 Jews in the ghetto. Lipsko was conveniently, for the Germans, located near a railway line. Some Jews were deported to forced labour camps, but in mid October 1942, the rest of the Jewish population were rounded up by German police and Ukrainian auxiliary guards. A few escaped to hide with local Polish friends or join the partisans. Most were transported to the

Tarłów Tarłów is a village (a town in 1550-1870) in Opatów County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Tarłów. It lies approximately north-east of Opatów and e ...

ghetto and then on to the

Treblinka extermination camp 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 ...

, where they were murdered on arrival by gassing. The number of Jewish survivors from Lipsko is unknown. On January 1, 1956, Lipsko became the seat of a county in

Kielce Voivodeship Kielce Voivodeship ( pl, województwo kieleckie) is a former unit of administrative division and the local government in Poland. It was originally formed during Poland's return to independence in the aftermath of World War One, and recreated within ...

. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively part of the Radom Voivodeship.

Sports

The town is home to a sports club Powiślanka Lipsko, founded in 1964.

References

History of Lipsko

External links

Official town webpage

Jewish Community in Lipsko
on Virtual Shtetl {{Gmina Lipsko Cities and towns in Masovian Voivodeship Lipsko County Sandomierz Voivodeship Radom Governorate Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland