Skarżysko-Kamienna

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Template:Infobox settlement Skarżysko-Kamienna (Template:IPA) is a city in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in south-central PolandTemplate:TERYT by Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major cities. Prior to 1928, it bore the name of Kamienna; in less formal contexts usually only the first part of the name (Skarżysko) is used. It belongs to historic Polish province of Lesser Poland.

Skarżysko-Kamienna is an important railroad junction, with two main lines (Kraków – Warsaw and Sandomierz – Koluszki) crossing there.

History

Railway station in 1909

The present-day districts of Łyżwy and Nowy Młyn were the locations of Paleolithic industrial settlements, which are now archaeological sites, part of the Rydno Archaeological Reserve, consisting of several hundred former Paleolithic sites stretching from Skarżysko-Kamienna to Wąchock.<ref name=ng>Template:Cite web</ref> The sites were discovered in 1923–1925.<ref name=ng/>

In 1173, the knights' congress gathered in Milica village (now the town's district) led by Casimir II The Just. Within the Polish Kingdom, Skarżysko was a private village of Polish nobility, administratively located in the Radom County in the Sandomierz Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Around 1885 Kamienna became an important rail junction on the newly built Ivangorod-Dąbrowa Railway. The main line of the railway connecting Ivangorod (Dęblin) and Dąbrowa Górnicza ran through the town from north to south, and two branch lines to Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski and Koluszki radiated from the town east and west, respectively. This spurred the growth of Kamienna from a village into a sizeable town by 1920, when it had about 20 enterprises employing 1000 workers, as well as railway workshops employing an additional 1000 workers.<ref name="townhistory">Official city website - history section</ref>

Second Polish Republic

In 1923, the commune of Kamienna was granted the status of a town. In 1922 the government of Poland decided to build an ammunition factory in Kamienna, to be called Państwowa Wytwornia Uzbrojenia Fabryka Amunicji (P.W.U. Fabryka Amunicji, "National Armament Factory - Ammunition Plant") It began production in 1924 supplying munitions to the Polish Army. It employed 2760 workers in 1932, over 3000 in 1936, and over 4500 in 1939, becoming the principal employer in the town and driving its growth.<ref name="townhistory"/> The company still functions today under the name Zakłady Metalowe MESKO S.A.).

In 1928, town's name was changed to Skarżysko-Kamienna. In 1937 the town had 19,700 inhabitants, among them 2,800 Jews (about 14% of the total).<ref name="ushmm_enc">Geoffrey P. Megargee, Christopher Browning, Martin Dean,Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, Indiana University Press, 2012, pp. 308-311</ref>

Template:See also

German occupation of Skarżysko-Kamienna (1939–1945)

Mass grave of Poles massacred by the Germans during the occupation

Following the September 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany, which started World War II, Skarżysko-Kamienna was under German occupation until liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945. The Germans controlled the ammunition factory to support their own war effort, and from 1940 it was controlled by the company Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft (HASAG), which ran it as a subcontractor for the Wehrmacht.<ref name="ushmm_enc"/> In 1940, the Germans carried out mass executions of Poles (360 people executed in February and 760 in June).<ref name="townhistory"/> The Polish underground resistance organization Orzeł Biały ("White Eagle") was organized in the town.<ref name=knc>Template:Cite web</ref> Among its members were local monks, and a weapons depot used by Polish partisans was located in the local monastery.<ref name=knc/> Several monks were arrested and murdered by the Germans in the massacre committed in February 1940, while one managed to escape arrest.<ref name=knc/>

The ghetto for the town's Jewish population was established by the Germans in April or May 1941. Between August 1942 and summer of 1943 Jews from the Radom district were brought to three camps near the munitions factory to work the factory. According to German records, of the total 17,210 brought in with 58 transports, 6,408 managed to survive long enough to be evacuated to other camps when the Germans closed the factory in 1944. The ghetto was liquidated in October 1942, with some inhabitants judged fit for work moved to the factory labour camps (about 500 out of 3000), and the rest were transported to Treblinka.<ref name="ushmm_enc"/> In the major monograph on the subject estimated that despite the incompleteness of German records which likely underestimate the number of inmates, about 25,000 Jewish inmates were brought to the camp and 7,000 were evacuated from it; about 18,000 died there.<ref>Felicja Karay, Death Comes in Yellow: Skarżysko-Kamienna Slave Labor Camp, Taylor & Francis, 1997</ref> The secret Polish Council to Aid Jews "Żegota", established by the Polish resistance movement, operated in the town.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> There are several known cases of Poles, who were either executed on sight or imprisoned in the local prison and deported to concentration camps for rescuing and aiding Jews.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In April 1942, the Germans founded the Stalag 380 prisoner-of-war camp, which several months later was relocated to Oppdal and Dombås in German-occupied Norway.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

At least nine Boy Scouts and two Girl Scouts from the town were murdered by the Germans during the occupation (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The monk who managed to avoid capture by the Germans in 1940, died in the Soviet bombing of the town in 1945.<ref name=knc/>

From 1945 to present

On 18 January 1945 the town was liberated and restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. About a dozen Jewish survivors returned to Skarżysko-Kamienna in the winter of 1945-1946 to retrieve Jewish property.<ref name="ushmm_enc"/> Soon afterwards, in February 1946, five of them were murdered for profit by a small group of local criminals.<ref name="ushmm_enc"/><ref name="sztetl.org">Template:Cite web</ref> The murderers, among them the head of the Soviet-installed town police and another communist policeman, were put on trial in Łodź. Three of them received the death penalty. The remaining Jews left Poland,<ref>Source: Pinkas Hakehilot Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Poland, Vol. VII, Districts Lublin, Kielce, Yad Vashem, Martyrs' and Heros' Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem 1999</ref> except for Dr. Zundel Kahanel and his wife Bima who spent the rest of their lives in the city.<ref name="sztetl.org"/>

Main railway station

Meanwhile, in 1948 the leading HASAG managers were tried in Leipzig in the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. Of the 25 tried, 4 were sentenced to death, 2 to life in prison, and 18 to terms between one and five years.<ref name="ushmm_enc"/>

In 1969, The White Eagle Museum was established. In 1984, town limits were expanded by including the neighboring settlements of Łyżwy and Nowy Młyn as new districts.<ref>Template:Cite Polish law</ref> In 1999, Skarżysko County was established as a result of the Local Government Reorganization Act (1998).

Mayors

Points of interest

  • The White Eagle Museum (Polish: Muzeum im. Orła Białego) - a regional museum with a large outdoor display of military equipment, most items dating back to the World War II period.
  1. Indoor display – uniforms, ammunition, pistols and smaller guns, soldier equipment, photographs and documents
  2. Outdoor display – one of Poland's few ships displayed onshore (torpedo boat Odważny - The Brave), planes, tanks (including one of world's few preserved Sturmgeschütz IV vehicles), helicopters, cannons, etc.
  • Rejów Lake
    Rejów Lake
  • The Sacred Heart of Jesus Church
    The Sacred Heart of Jesus Church
  • Sanctuary Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn
    Sanctuary Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn

Sports

The town's most notable sports clubs are football team ZKS Granat Skarżysko and volleyball team Template:Ill, which both compete in the lower leagues.

Notable people

International relations

Template:More citations needed section Template:See also Template:Commons

Twin towns — Sister cities

Skarżysko-Kamienna is twinned with:

References

Template:Reflist

Template:Cities of Poland Template:Skarżysko County Template:Authority control

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