Piotrówka is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Jemielnica __NOTOC__ Gmina Jemielnica, German Gemeinde Himmelwitz is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Strzelce County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the village of Jemielnica (Himmelwitz), which lies approximately north-ea ...

(Gemeinde Himmelwitz), within

Strzelce County __NOTOC__ Strzelce County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Opole Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998 ...

Opole Voivodeship Opole Voivodeship ( , , ), is the smallest and least populated voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province's name derives from that of the region's capital and largest city, Opole. It is part of Silesia. A relatively lar ...

, in the south-western Polish region of

Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...

. It lies approximately north of

Jemielnica Jemielnica (1945-47: Imielnica) (Himmelwitz) is a village in Strzelce County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Jemielnica. It lies approximately north-east of Strzelce ...

/Himmelwitz, north-east of

Strzelce Opolskie Strzelce Opolskie () is a town in southern Poland with 17,900 inhabitants (2019), situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Strzelce County. Etymology The name of the town is of Polish origin and comes from the old Polish word ''s ...

/Groß Strehlitz, and east of the regional capital

Opole Opole (; ; ; ) is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia. With a population of approximately 127,387 as of the 2021 census, it is the capital of Opole Voivodeship (province) and the seat of ...

. Since 2006 the village has been officially bilingual in German and Polish.

History

The village of Petersgrätz was founded in 1832 by 60 colonists from the nearby village of Friedrichsgrätz. The colonists were mainly members of the

Unity of the Brethren Unity of the Brethren (Latin ''Unitas Fratrum'') may refer to: *Unity of the Brethren (Czech Republic), the province of the Moravian Church in the Czech Republic * Unity of the Brethren (Texas), a Protestant church formed in the 1800s by Czech immi ...

(Hussites), and the town was named after their pastor, Peter Schikora, who was actively involved in the village's establishment. In 1841 a Protestant school opened, which was replaced by a new building in 1882, and in 1892 the first Protestant church was built. In the

Upper Silesia plebiscite The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine ownership of the province of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and the Second Polish Republic. The region was ethni ...

of March 1921, 639 villagers voted to remain in Germany and 169 voted to join the newly created

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

. As a result, Petersgrätz remained as a village of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

. In 1945, the Red Army occupied the village and drove a large part of its population out. The town was first renamed Piotrogród, then later Piotrówka. The Protestant church was converted into a Catholic church, and in 1946 a separate parish was formed for the village. In 2006 the village was declared bilingual in German and Polish, and in 2008 the original German name of Petersgrätz was again made official. In the center of town there is a war memorial honoring the soldiers from Petersgrätz who died in World War II.

References

Villages in Strzelce County {{Strzelce-geo-stub