Raków is a district of

Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...

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 south-eastern part of the city. The

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 ...

club

Raków Częstochowa Robotniczy Klub Sportowy Raków Częstochowa Spółka Akcyjna (commonly referred to as Raków Częstochowa, or simply Raków) is a Polish professional football club, based in Częstochowa, that competes in the Ekstraklasa, the top tier of natio ...

was founded and is based in Raków.

History

Lusatian culture The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age (1300–500 ) in most of what is now Poland and parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, eastern Germany and western Ukraine. It covers the Periods Montelius III (e ...

cemetery from around 750 BC–550 BC is located in Raków and it is now an Archaeological Reserve, a branch of the Częstochowa Museum. It was discovered in 1955. In 1896–1902, the ''Huta Częstochowa'' steelworks were built in Raków. Raków soon evolved into an industrial settlement. Raków was included within the city limits of Częstochowa as a new district in 1928. Following 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 ...

in September 1939, Raków was occupied by Germany until 1945. The Germans seized the steelworks and handed them over to the

HASAG HASAG (also known as Hugo Schneider AG, or by its original name in ) was a German metal goods manufacturer founded in 1863. Based in Leipzig, it grew from a small business making lamps and other small metal products by hand into a large factory ...

company. The HASAG company operated a

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

camp for

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

men. Polish workers aided imprisoned Jews, and in mid-1944, Polish resistance member Jan Brus, who supplied Jews with food and money on behalf of the

Żegota Żegota (, full codename: the "Konrad Żegota Committee"Yad Vashem Shoa Resource CenterZegota/ref>) was the Polish Council to Aid Jews with the Government Delegation for Poland (), an underground Polish resistance organization, and part of th ...

Council to Aid Jews, was shot by a German camp guard. In the 2020s, the local

football team became one of the top teams in Poland, winning its first

Polish Cup The Polish Cup in Association football, football ( ) is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout football competition for Polish football club (association football), football clubs, held continuously since 1950, and is the second most i ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, and its first Polish football championship in

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

Sights

Sights of Raków include: * Municipal Culture Center * prehistoric Archaeological Reserve * Saint Joseph church * ''Plac Orląt Lwowskich'' ("

Lwów Eaglets Lwów Eaglets () is a term of affection that is applied to the Polish child soldiers who fought for the city of Lwów (), in Eastern Galicia, during the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919). Background The city now known in Ukrainian as Lviv () ...

Square") with the Lwów Eaglets Monument and the Saint Melchior Grodziecki church

Transport

The Częstochowa Raków railway station is located in Raków.

References

{{reflist Częstochowa Neighbourhoods in Silesian Voivodeship Prehistoric sites in Poland