Wodzisław is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

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

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship ( ), also known as Holy Cross Voivodeship, is a voivodeship (province) in southeastern Poland, in the historical region of Lesser Poland. The province's capital and largest city is Kielce. The voivodeship takes its ...

, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' ) is the basic unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,479 gminy throughout the country, encompassing over 43,000 villages. 940 gminy include cities and tow ...

(administrative district) called Gmina Wodzisław. It lies in historic

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

, approximately south-west of Jędrzejów and south-west of the regional capital

Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...

. The town has a population of 1,100. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, Wodzisław was a property of the

Lanckoroński The House of Lanckoroński (plural: Lanckorońscy) was an old and wealthy Polish aristocratic family. Its representatives held power and influence in the Kingdom of Poland from the times of the late Piast dynasty (14th century) to the end of the ...

family. It is located on the S7 highway, the main highway connecting

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

with

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...

and

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 ...

History

Wodzisław has a long and rich history, which dates back to the reign of King

Władysław I Łokietek Władysław I Łokietek, in English known as the "Elbow-high" or Ladislaus the Short (c. 1260/12 March 1333), was King of Poland from 1320 to 1333, and duke of several of the provinces and principalities in the preceding years. He was a member of ...

, who granted it

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

in ca. 1317. At that time, it was called Włodzisław, and the town was a royal property. In 1370, King

Casimir III the Great Casimir III the Great (; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, retaining the title throughout the Galicia–Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king fr ...

handed the town over to local noblemen Zbigniew and Przedbor. In the 16th century, Wodzisław became property of the

Lanckoroński family The House of Lanckoroński (plural: Lanckorońscy) was an old and wealthy Polish nobility, Polish aristocratic family. Its representatives held power and influence in the Kingdom of Poland from the times of the late Piast dynasty (14th century) t ...

, and was a local center of artisans. It was a

private town Private towns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were privately owned towns within the lands owned by magnates, bishops, knights and princes, among others. Amongst the most well-known former private magnate towns are Białystok, Zamość, R ...

, administratively located in the

Sandomierz Voivodeship Sandomierz Voivodeship (, ) 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 Poland region and the Lesser Poland Province. Originally Sandomier ...

in the Lesser Poland Province. In 1551, the wooden Roman Catholic church was transferred to the

Calvinists Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyterian, ...

, and most residents switched to Calvinism. Wodzisław was one of main centers of

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

in Lesser Poland, here as many as 20 Calvinist

synod A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word '' synod'' comes from the Ancient Greek () ; the term is analogous with the Latin word . Originally, ...

s took place (1557, 1558, 1559, twice in 1560, 1561, 1566, 1583, 1589, 1590, 1595, twice in 1597, 1599, 1601, 1604, 1606, 1607, 1609, 1610, 1611, and 1612). Calvinist prayer house at Wodzisław was closed down in 1613, after the Zebrzydowski Rebellion, when town’s owner Samuel Lanckoroński abandoned Calvinism and became a Roman Catholic. Soon afterwards, Lanckoroński built St. Martin church, and ordered all Calvinists either to convert, or to leave Wodzisław. The church burned in 1746, to be rebuilt in 1787 by Maciej Lanckoroński. The town had a castle, built in mid-16th century by Jan Lanckoroński. In the late 17th century, the castle was turned into a palace, and at the same time, first Jewish settlers came to Wodzisław, and in 1720, first synagogue was opened. 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 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 ...

. After the Polish victory in the

Austro-Polish War The Austro-Polish War or Polish-Austrian War was a part of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 (a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and allied states). In this war, Polish forces of ...

of 1809, it became part of the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

, and after the duchy's dissolution, from 1815 to 1915, it was part of Russian-controlled

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

. According to the 1827 census, Wodzisław had a population of 1,760, with 191 houses. By 1857, the population grew to 2,081, with 1,463 Jews. In 1865, the town burned in a fire, and in 1869 it lost its town rights. On 4 September 1939, during 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 ...

, 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 ...

, German troops committed a massacre of 30 Polish refugees from

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

. Afterwards the town was occupied by Germany, and the occupiers committed further massacres and

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...

s. In mid-June 1942, the SS committed a massacre of around 50 Jews. On 20 November 1942, during the deportation of Jews to

Sandomierz Sandomierz (pronounced: ; , ) is a historic town in south-eastern Poland with 23,863 inhabitants (), situated on the Vistula River near its confluence with the San, in the Sandomierz Basin. It has been part of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy ...

, a 64-year-old man was shot by the occupiers for trying to escape. In September and October of 1943, the German gendarmerie and SS carried out massacres of 318 Jews. On 8 July 1944, the German police perpetrated a massacre of 13 Poles during a pacification action. There were also multiple instances of executions of one, two or three Poles at a time, including those attempting to escape arrest. In January 1945, the Germans executed three men, prisoners of the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

, for attempting to escape while being transported west.

References

{{Massacres of Poles Cities and towns in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Jędrzejów County Holocaust locations in Poland Sites of Nazi war crimes during the Invasion of Poland Sites of World War II massacres of Poles