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==Sister cities and twin towns== ==Sister cities and twin towns==

Revision as of 00:16, 11 October 2007

For Tarnow in Germany, see Tarnow, Germany. Town in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland
Tarnów
Town
Town Hall on Main SquareTown Hall on Main Square
Flag of TarnówFlagCoat of arms of TarnówCoat of arms
CountryPoland
VoivodeshipLesser Poland
PowiatCity County
GminaTarnów
City Rights1330
Government
 • MayorRyszard Ścigała
Area
 • Total72.4 km (28.0 sq mi)
Population
 • Total118,128
 • Density1,643/km (4,260/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code33-100 to 33-110
Area code+48 014
Car PlatesKT
Websitewww.tarnow.pl

Tarnów (; Template:Lang-de; Template:Lang-yi) is a city in southeastern Poland with 118,128 inhabitants (2006).

The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship.

History

The first recorded mention of the city was in 1124. It gained city rights on March 7, 1330. In the 13th century, numerous German settlers immigrated from Kraków and Nowy Sącz. During the 16th century Scottish immigrants began to come in large numbers (Dun, Huyson and Nikielson). It was annexed by Habsburg Austria in 1772 during the First Partition of Poland. The Diocese of Tarnów was formed in 1785.

During World War I, the city was one of the focal points of Austro-Hungarian/German Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive of 1915, a military operation that changed the situation in the Eastern Front and resulted in major retreat of opposing Russian forces. After the war, the city became part of a reconstituted Polish state on October 30, 1918.

The Jews of Tarnów

Before World War II, about 25,000 Jews lived in Tarnow. Jews--whose recorded presence in the town went back to the mid-fifteenth century--comprised about half of the town's total population. A large portion of Jewish business in Tarnow was devoted to garment and hat manufacturing. The Jewish community was ideologically diverse and included both religious Hasidim and secular Zionists.

Immediately following the German occupation of the city on September 8, 1939, the harassment of the Jews began. German units burned down most of the city's synagogues on September 9 and drafted Jews for forced-labor projects. Tarnow was incorporated into the Generalgouvernement. Many Tarnow Jews fled to the east, while a large influx of refugees from elsewhere in Poland continued to increase the town's Jewish population. In early November, the Germans ordered the establishment of a Jewish council (Judenrat) to transmit orders and regulations to the Jewish community. Among the duties of the Jewish council were enforcement of special taxation on the community and providing workers for forced labor.

During 1941, life for the Jews of Tarnow became increasingly precarious. The Germans imposed a large collective fine on the community. Jews were required to hand in their valuables. Roundups for labor became more frequent and killings became more commonplace and arbitrary. Deportations from Tarnow began in June 1942, when about 13,500 Jews were sent to the Belzec extermination camp. During the deportation operations, German SS and police forces massacred hundreds of Jews in the streets, in the marketplace, in the Jewish cemetery, and in the woods outside the town.

After the June deportations, the Germans ordered the surviving Jews in Tarnow, along with thousands of Jews from neighboring towns, into a ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a high wooden fence. Living conditions in the ghetto were poor, marked by severe food shortages, a lack of sanitary facilities, and a forced-labor regimen in factories and workshops producing goods for the German war industry.

In September 1942, the Germans ordered all ghetto residents to report at Targowica Square, where they were subjected to a "Selektion" (selection) in which those deemed "unessential" were selected out for deportation to Belzec. About 8,000 people were deported. Thereafter, deportations from Tarnow to extermination camps continued sporadically; the Germans deported a group of 2,500 in November 1942.

In the midst of the 1942 deportations, some Jews in Tarnow organized a Jewish resistance movement. Many of the resistance leaders were young Zionists involved in the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir youth movement. Many of those who left the ghetto to join the partisans fighting in the forests later fell in battle with SS units. Other resisters sought to establish escape routes to Hungary, but with limited success.

The Germans decided to destroy the Tarnow ghetto in September 1943. The surviving 10,000 Jews were deported, 7,000 of them to Auschwitz and 3,000 to the Plaszow concentration camp in Krakow. In late 1943, Tarnow was declared "free of Jews" (Judenrein). By the end of the war, the overwhelming majority of Tarnow Jews had been murdered by the Germans. Although some 700 Jews returned to the city after liberation, virtually all of them soon left to escape local antisemitism.

Education

Sports

Politics

Tarnów constituency

Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Tarnów constituency:

Notable residents

Other residents

Sister cities and twin towns

See also

External links

Notes

This article incorporates text from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has been released under the GFDL.

50°02′N 21°00′E / 50.033°N 21.000°E / 50.033; 21.000

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