Bircza
Encyclopedia
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in Przemyśl County
Przemysl County
Przemyśl County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, south-eastern Poland, on the border with Ukraine. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998...
, Subcarpathian Voivodeship
Subcarpathian Voivodeship
Podkarpackie Voivodeship , or Subcarpathian Voivodeship, is a voivodeship, or province, in extreme-southeastern Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów...
, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina
Gmina
The gmina is the principal unit of administrative division of Poland at its lowest uniform level. It is often translated as "commune" or "municipality." As of 2010 there were 2,479 gminas throughout the country...
(administrative district) called Gmina Bircza
Gmina Bircza
Gmina Bircza is a rural gmina in Przemyśl County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. Its seat is the village of Bircza, which lies approximately south-west of Przemyśl and south-east of the regional capital Rzeszów....
. It lies approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi) south-west of Przemyśl
Przemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
and 51 km (32 mi) south-east of the regional capital Rzeszów
Rzeszów
Rzeszów is a city in southeastern Poland with a population of 179,455 in 2010. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River, in the heartland of the Sandomierska Valley...
. The village has a population of 1,000.
In Bircza was born Orthodox metropolitan Yov Boretsky
Yov Boretsky
Yov Boretsky ; was a Ukrainian Orthodox metropolitan ....
and Jan Komski.
Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Bircza area was home to a large Jewish community
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
. Nearly all of them were murdered during the ensuing Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.