Sokołów Małopolski is a town in

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

Subcarpathian Voivodeship Subcarpathian Voivodeship is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshal, it is governed by the Subcarpathian Regional As ...

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 ...

, with a population of 3,962 (2 June 2009).

Geography

Sokołów Małopolski lies in

Sandomierz Basin Sandomierz Basin () is a lowland, located in southeastern Poland, between the Lesser Poland Upland, Lublin Upland and the Western Carpathians. Its name comes from the historical city of Sandomierz, and the basin has a triangular shape with the s ...

, 24 kilometers north of Rzeszow, and 11 kilometers from

Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport Rzeszów Ulma Airport is an international airport located in southeastern Poland, in Jasionka, Rzeszów County, Jasionka, a village from the center of the city of Rzeszów. Not to be confused with the much smaller used by Rzeszów University ...

History

The history of Sokołów Małopolski starts with a forest settlement, located in once extensive

Sandomierz Forest Sandomierz Forest () is one of the biggest forests in southern Poland; covering large parts of the Sandomierz Basin. Its name comes from the historical city of Sandomierz, and in the Middle Ages its eastern edge created a natural border between Le ...

, which the sources describe as far as the 14th century. In 1569, Sokołów received a town charter, with a Renaissance street plan and a market square in the centre. In 1608, the town was looted by Stanislaw Stadnicki, a well-known troublemaker and the so-called “Devil of

Łańcut Łańcut (, ; ; ) is a town in south-eastern Poland, with 18,004 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. Situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (since 1999), it is the Capital (political), capital of Łańcut County. History Archeological investigat ...

”, but after this incident, Sokolow continued to prosper. In 1657, during the

Swedish invasion of Poland The Deluge 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 Andrusovo in 1667, comprising the Pol ...

, Sokolow was destroyed by

Transilvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border are the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the ...

n army of George II Rakoczi. Following the

First Partition of Poland The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that eventually ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The growth of power in the Russian Empire threatened the Kingdom of Prussia an ...

, Sokołów was in 1772 annexed by the

Habsburg Empire The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

, and remained in Austrian Galicia until late 1918. The town burned in fires in 1863 and 1904, and did not prosper. In the

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 ...

, Sokolow belonged to

Lwow Voivodeship Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

, and even though it was located in the Central Industrial Region, no plant was opened here, and the promised rail line was not built. In the 17th century, the town was protected by fortifications with five gates and moat. Sokolow has a 17th-century Jewish cemetery, and a parish church (1908–1916). Today, due to numerous wars and fires, there are only buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2010, local villagers helped to clean up the Jewish cemetery, though without the cooperation of local officials who reportedly said they didn't want to cooperate with Jews. At the time of the German

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 ...

in September, 1939, Sokołów Małopolski's Jewish population was about 1,600. The Germans immediately requisitioned Jews for

forced labor 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 ...

. In April 1942, the Jewish population, then numbering 3,000 because of refugees and others resettled by the Germans in Sokołów Małopolski, was forced into a

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

. In July, German police shot 30 residents of the ghetto, resettled 200 in a labor camp in Głogów, and moved others to the Rzeszów ghetto where they were sent to the

Belzec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major p ...

in July. Several dozens of Jews who hid from the deportations were murdered later in the year and in the summer of 1943, three Jews and the four Poles hiding them were shot and buried on the grounds of Sokołów Małopolski's elementary school. The number of the few Jewish survivors is unknown.

References

External links

Official town webpageOld Sokolow Malopolski photographs
taken about 24 years ago. {{Authority control Cities and towns in Subcarpathian Voivodeship Rzeszów County