Oświęcim
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Oświęcim (pronunciation: [ʔoɕ'fʲeɲʨiːm]) (German: Auschwitz, Yiddish Oshpitizin אָשפּצן, Romany: Aushvitsa, Osvyenchim, Czech: Osvětim, Slovak: Osvienčim, Russian: Освенцим) is a town in southern Poland with about 43,000 inhabitants (2001), situated some 50 km west of Kraków in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, previously in Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship (1975-1998).
The German name Auschwitz is still used when referring to the Auschwitz concentration camp built there by Nazi Germany during World War II.
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[edit] History
The city was first mentioned in 1117. In 1179 it was detached from the Kraków senior province and attached to the Duchy of Opole. Oświęcim was organized under German law (more precisely Lwówek law, which is a flavor of Magdeburg law) in 1270. Throughout history, Germans and Poles lived here together peacefully. From 1315 Oświęcim was the capital of an independent duchy. In 1327 duke John I of Oświęcim formed with the western part of Galicia and the duchies of Oświęcim and Zator a vassal state attached to the kingdom of Bohemia. Later the area went again to the dukes from Te and Grossglogau. In the 14th century many people moved away. The interest of the Germans in Auschwitz shrank and in 1457 the Polish king Casimir IV bought the rights to Oświęcim which was attached afterwards the Cracow Voivodeship. Jews, invited by Polish kings to settle in the region, had already become the majority of the population in the 15th century. Oświęcim also became one of centres of Protestant culture in Poland.
The town was destroyed by Swedish troops in 1655. When Poland was divided in the late 18th century, Oświęcim became part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (an Austro-Hungarian province) in 1772 and was located close to the borders of Russia and Prussia. After World War I the town returned to Poland with that country's reemergence as an independent nation. On the eve of World War II there were about 8,000 Jews in the city.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, slave labour was used to build a new subdivision that would house concentration camp guards and others that moved to Oświęcim to run the Auschwitz death camps. The prisoners of Auschwitz were also used to build a large chemical works, Buna-Werke, for I.G. Farben, which produced many different chemicals needed for Germany's war effort.
Following World War II, the town recovered and new housing estates were constructed in the typical communist style. The buildings are large rectangular concrete constructions, and they satisfy the housing needs for many of the town's inhabitants. Until 1989, the town thrived from the large chemical works. In the mid-1990s, the chemical company, now named Dwory S.A., began to downsize and lay workers off. During the communist era, the chemical works employed about 10,000 people. Following the firm's restructuring and financial problems after 1989, employment at the plant shrank to only 1,500 people.
[edit] Concentration camp
Poland was occupied by Germany in World War II, and in 1940 the Germans built the Auschwitz concentration camp by converting Polish military barracks. Later, across town, they also built the vast Auschwitz II (Birkenau) camp.
Between 1940 and 1945, at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the Auschwitz camps: see the articles on Auschwitz concentration camp, List of subcamps of Auschwitz, Holocaust and extermination camp for a detailed account.
After the war, the Polish government took possession of the Buna-Werke, a chemical factory owned by IG Farben which had previously used Auschwitz prisoners as slave laborers. The chemical industry became the main employer of Oświęcim; in later times service and trade were emphasized. The concentration camps became museums and memorial sites. Currently, about 1 million visitors tour Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps every year.
[edit] Politics
[edit] Oświęcim-Wadowice constituency
Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from this constituency
- Chwierut Janusz, PO
- Graś Paweł, PO
- Kowal Paweł, PiS
- Łatas Marek Jerzy, PiS
- Murzyn Leszek, LPR
- Polak Marek, PiS
- Rydzoń Stanisław, SLD-UP
- Szydło Beata, PiS
[edit] People
- Łukasz Górnicki, (1527-1603) Polish poet
- Simon Syrenius, (1540-1611) Jagiellonian University professor, botanist
- Tadeusz Makowski, (1882-1932) Polish painter
- Aaron Miller (cantor), rebbe, the father of chazzan Benzion Miller
- Arkadiusz Skrzypaszek (1968) modern pentathelete
- Paweł Korzeniowski, (1985) swimmer
[edit] Sports
- The ice hockey team of Oświęcim was repeatedly Polish champions.
- Lots of Polish figure skaters, like the pair Dorota Zagórska and Mariusz Siudek, Sabina Wojtala, Anna Jurkiewicz and others, hail from the town of Oświęcim.
[edit] See also
