Grójec
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Grójec is a town in eastern
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, located in the
Masovian Voivodeship Masovian Voivodeship or Mazowieckie Province (, ) and any variation thereof, is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, containing Poland's capital Warsaw. Masovian Voivodeship has an area of and had a 2019 po ...
, about south of
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
. It is the capital of the urban-rural administrative district Grójec and Grójec County. It has 16,674 inhabitants (2017). Grójec surroundings are considered to be the biggest apple-growing area of Poland. It is said that the region makes up also for the biggest apple orchard of Europe. Statistically, every third apple sold in Poland is grown in Grójec – a unique local
microclimate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often slightly but sometimes substantially. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square m ...
provides for their beautiful red colour.Michał Mackiewicz
"Okolice Grójca." Mazowiecki Urząd Wojewódzki w Warszawie.
 


History

In the 11th and 12th centuries, Grójec was the seat of a
castellan A castellan, or constable, was the governor of a castle in medieval Europe. Its surrounding territory was referred to as the castellany. The word stems from . A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1 ...
y, which was then moved to
Czersk Czersk (; ; formerly , (1942-5): ) is a town in northern Poland in Chojnice County, Pomeranian Voivodeship. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 9,844. Today the center of the city of Czersk in is the Village Square. The infrastructu ...
. It was granted town rights in 1419 by Duke Janusz I of Warsaw from the
Piast dynasty 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 (–992). The Poland during the Piast dynasty, Piasts' royal rule in Pol ...
.


World War II

In September 1939, during the joint German-Soviet
invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
which started
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the town was bombed by the ''
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
'' and afterwards captured by Germany. In November 1940, during the Nazi occupation of Poland, German authorities established a Jewish ghetto in Grójec, in order to confine its Jewish population for the purpose of persecution and exploitation. The ghetto was liquidated in February 1941, when almost all of its inhabitants (5,200–6,000) were transported on trains used for cattle to
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
, the largest ghetto in all of Nazi occupied Europe with over 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of . From there, most inmates were sent to
Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be 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 Mas ...
.Warsaw Ghetto
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...
(USHMM),
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
Richard C. Lukas Richard Conrad Lukas (born August 29, 1937) is an American historian and author of books and articles on Military history, military, Diplomatic history, diplomatic, History of Poland, Polish, and History of the Poles in the United States, Polis ...
, ''Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust'', University Press of Kentucky 1989 – 201 pages. Page 13; also in Richard C. Lukas, ''The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939–1944'', University Press of Kentucky, 1986
Google Print, p.13
Gunnar S. Paulsson, "The Rescue of Jews by Non-Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland," ''Journal of Holocaust Education'', Vol.7, Nos.1&2, 1998, pp.19–44. Published by Frank Cass, London.Edward Victor
"Ghettos and Other Jewish Communities."
''Judaica Philatelic''. Accessed 20 June 2011.
Only a group of Jewish craftsmen was left in Grójec, however, they were also annihilated in a mass execution in Dębówka, near Góra Kalwaria. German occupation of Grójec ended in January 1945.


Nature


Forest Inspectorate Reserves

There are nine nature reserves in the Grójec Forest Inspectorate, whose total area exceeds 1 thousand
hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...
s. The following are forest reserves that cover a part of the forested area: Dąbrowa Radziejowska, a 52.50 hectare reserve in a large forest complex in the Radziejowice commune, was created in 1984 to preserve and protect luminous oak wood; Osuchowskie Grądy, a 99,25 hectare reserve was established in 1982 and is at the highest point of the Mazowiecka lowland; Skulski Las, a 311.75 hectare partial forest reserve established in 1984 and includes most of the Skuły Wschód range, situated in the Skuły-Wschód forestry unit; and Skulskie Oaks, a 30,07 hectare partial forest reserve of the area of established in 1996, covering the north-western part of the Skuły-Western range and belonging to the Grójec Forest Inspectorate. The Łęgacz Nad Jeziorka 37.31 hectare reserve is situated by the Jeziorka River, several hundred meters to the north-west of Głuchów village. The protected area covers a fragment of the river valley and a riparian forest growing on its right bank and marshy bottom of the valley. The Lakes of Olszyna nature reserve was established by the Ministry of the Environment on 25 January 1995. The forest reserve is in the southern part of the lake district on the Jeziorka River and has a total area is 5.83 hectares, including 4.99 hectares of forest. The Modrzewina forest reserve was established in 1959 on the grounds of the village of Mała Wieś in the commune of Belsk Duży to protect the northernmost site of Polish larch in the Highland, which grow in this area to a height of 40 meters and up to 120 cm in circumference. Tomczyce is a landscape reserve of 57.99 hectare, established in 1968, located between the villages of Gostomia and Tomczyce to the east of Nowe Miasto. The reserve protects the steep slope of the Pilica valley, cut by several ravines and overgrown by an old pine–oak forest. The valley slopes from a height of 20 meters to the river, which remains steep due to erosion of the riverbank, running along the foot of the slope and undercutting it periodically. The Sokół forest reserve was established in 1995 in the commune of Wyśmierzyce to protect the area of forests, meadows and marshes and preserve the plant complexes with the dominant mountain ash for scientific and educational purposes. Within the territorial range of Grójec Forest Inspectorate there are four Landscape Protection Areas along the picturesque and ecologically important river valleys, namely, the Jeziorka River Valley, Pilica and Drzewiczka River Valley; Bolimowsko Radziejowicki with the Central Rawka River Valley and the Chojnatka River Valley.


Sports

The local
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
team is . It competes in the lower leagues.


Notable people

* Piotr Skarga (1536–1612), Polish
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
, preacher, hagiographer and polemicist. * Asher Rabinowicz of Przedbórz (ca.1720–1798) an 18th-century Hasidic Maggid (preacher). * Jan Jagmin-Sadowski (1895–1977), a general of the
Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
* Marek Suski (born 1958), a Polish politician * Justyna Kozdryk (born 1980, a Polish Paralympic powerlifter * Bartłomiej Niedziela (born 1985), a Polish
footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...
with over 250 club caps


International relations


Twin towns – Sister cities

Grójec is twinned with: *
Spišská Nová Ves Spišská Nová Ves (; ; ) is a town in the Košice Region of Slovakia. The town is located southeast of the High Tatras in the Spiš region, and lies on both banks of the Hornád River. It is the biggest town of the Spišská Nová Ves Distric ...
, Slovakia * Strumica, North Macedonia * Canosa di Puglia, Italy * Horki, Belarus


See also

* Grojec (disambiguation)


Notes and references


Grójec city government webpage

Jewish Community in Grójec
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Cities and towns in Masovian Voivodeship Grójec County Holocaust locations in Poland