Lomza
Encyclopedia
Łomża ' is a city in north-eastern Poland
, approximately 90 mile
s (150 km
) from Warsaw
and 50 miles (81 km) from Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew
river and has been in the Podlaskie Voivodeship
since 1999. Previously, it was the capital of the Łomża Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Łomża County and the capital of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Łomża since 1925.
Łomża is one of the principal economic, educational and cultural centres of north-eastern Masovia as well as one of the three main cities of Podlaskie Voivodeship (beside Białystok and Suwałki). It lends its name to the protected area
called Łomża Landscape Park. The town is also the location of the Łomża Brewery
.
Polish prince Bolesław IV the Curly built a palace there in the 12th century. In 1444 the town was granted an exemption from the transit tax on Narew
river contributing to its further development. In the 16th century Zygmunt II August gave Łomża the right to hold great fairs three times a year, similar to Warsaw
and Płock. In 1618 a great fire destroyed most of the city, and six years later, an epidemic killed 5,021 persons decimating its population. A series of disasters (including the Swedish invasion and the Cossack
raids) resulted in its rapid decline.
References to Jewish residents in Łomża date to 1494. The population numbers date back only to 1808, when 157 Jews were officially counted. A magnificent stone synagogue was built there in 1881 on the initiative of Rabbi Eliezer-Simcha Rabinowicz. The Great Synagogue designed by Enrico Marconi
became a centre of the Zionist movement. In 1931, there were 8,912 Jews who lived in the city.
During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 Łomża was directly in the path of the Russian army's catastrophic retreat following its defeat at the Battle of Warsaw
. On August 15, 1920, the Soviet General August Kork of the 15th Army
mounted an unsuccessful defence of the town against the Polish Fourth Army of General Leonard Skierski
, before continuing its retreat eastward under pressure from the Polish forces.
In September 1939, during the joint Soviet
and German invasion of Poland, Łomża was largely destroyed by the Nazis, then held and turned over to the Red Army
. It remained in the Soviet hands until Operation Barbarossa
. In June 1941, at the onset of the Russian campaign
it was taken over by the German forces. On 12 August 1941 a Łomża Ghetto
was created in the vicinity of the Old Market Square (Stary Rynek). The Nazi Einsatzkommando
under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper
committed mass killings of alleged Soviet collaborators a few days later. The number of Jews compressed into the Ghetto from surrounding villages and towns such as Jedwabne
, Stawiski
, Piątnica
, Rotki
, Wizna
, Łomża and others, ranged from 10,000 to 18,000. Over two thousand people were murdered in the Giełczyn forest outside of town. Many Jews perished from malnutrition and diseases such as dysentery
and typhus
. The rest were shipped to Auschwitz for extermination. The ghetto was liquidated on 1 November 1942. Only a small number of the Jews of Łomża survived the Holocaust; some found refuge with Catholic Polish families
.
At the end of 1944, the USSR recaptured the territory. Following the Yalta Conference
the Soviets ceded the city back to Poland
, with population reduced to 12,500 inhabitants. In the years 1946-1975 the oldest part of the city was rebuilt. New housing estates came into existence along with several industrial plants, among them Łomża cotton and furniture factories and starch manufacturing PEPEES, as well as municipal thermal power station. The city transit was established. At the beginning of the 1970s population has reached almost 30,000 inhabitants.
|}
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, approximately 90 mile
Mile
A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5,280 feet . The mile of 5,280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile...
s (150 km
Kilometre
The kilometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second...
) from Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and 50 miles (81 km) from Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...
river and has been in the Podlaskie Voivodeship
Podlaskie Voivodeship
Podlaskie Voivodeship , is a voivodeship in northeastern Poland. It borders on Masovian Voivodeship to the west, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship to the northwest, Lublin Voivodeship to the south, the Belarusssian Voblasts of Grodno and Brest to the east, the Lithuanian Counties of Alytus and...
since 1999. Previously, it was the capital of the Łomża Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Łomża County and the capital of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Łomża since 1925.
Łomża is one of the principal economic, educational and cultural centres of north-eastern Masovia as well as one of the three main cities of Podlaskie Voivodeship (beside Białystok and Suwałki). It lends its name to the protected area
Protected area
Protected areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognised natural, ecological and/or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international...
called Łomża Landscape Park. The town is also the location of the Łomża Brewery
Browar Łomża
The Browar Łomża is Poland's fourth largest brewery. Browar Lomza Sp. z o.o. launched the plant in 1968. In 2007 it was purchased by Royal Unibrew. The Browar Łomża brewery is located in Łomża, Poland. In 2011 it was sold to company Van Pur.-Brand:...
.
History
Łomża was founded around the 10th century, on the site of the present day village called Stara Łomża (Old Łomża). It was first mentioned in official records in the 14th century. Łomża received its municipal rights in 1416, and became an important political and economic center in the mid-16th century.Polish prince Bolesław IV the Curly built a palace there in the 12th century. In 1444 the town was granted an exemption from the transit tax on Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...
river contributing to its further development. In the 16th century Zygmunt II August gave Łomża the right to hold great fairs three times a year, similar to Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and Płock. In 1618 a great fire destroyed most of the city, and six years later, an epidemic killed 5,021 persons decimating its population. A series of disasters (including the Swedish invasion and the Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
raids) resulted in its rapid decline.
References to Jewish residents in Łomża date to 1494. The population numbers date back only to 1808, when 157 Jews were officially counted. A magnificent stone synagogue was built there in 1881 on the initiative of Rabbi Eliezer-Simcha Rabinowicz. The Great Synagogue designed by Enrico Marconi
Enrico Marconi
Enrico Marconi, known in Poland as Henryk Marconi , was an Italian architect who spent most of his life in Congress Poland....
became a centre of the Zionist movement. In 1931, there were 8,912 Jews who lived in the city.
Battle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
. On August 15, 1920, the Soviet General August Kork of the 15th Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
mounted an unsuccessful defence of the town against the Polish Fourth Army of General Leonard Skierski
Leonard Skierski
Leonard Skierski was a Polish military officer and a general of the Imperial Russian Army and then the Polish Army. A veteran of World War I and the Polish-Bolshevik War, he was one of fourteen Polish generals to be murdered by the NKVD in the Katyn massacre of 1940.-Biography:Leonard Skierski was...
, before continuing its retreat eastward under pressure from the Polish forces.
In September 1939, during the joint Soviet
Soviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
and German invasion of Poland, Łomża was largely destroyed by the Nazis, then held and turned over to the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. It remained in the Soviet hands until Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. In June 1941, at the onset of the Russian campaign
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
it was taken over by the German forces. On 12 August 1941 a Łomża Ghetto
Łomża Ghetto
The Łomża Ghetto was created by Nazi Germans on 12 August 1941 in the vicinity of the Old Market in Łomża, Poland; following their attack on the Soviet Union. The Jews were ordered to move into it in a single day, resulting in panic at the main entry on ul. Senatorska. The number of Polish Jews...
was created in the vicinity of the Old Market Square (Stary Rynek). The Nazi Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper
SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper
Hermann Schaper , was a German member of the NSDAP and SS during the Second World War...
committed mass killings of alleged Soviet collaborators a few days later. The number of Jews compressed into the Ghetto from surrounding villages and towns such as Jedwabne
Jedwabne
Jedwabne is a town in Poland, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, in Łomża County, with 1,942 inhabitants .- History :First mentioned in 1455, Jedwabne received city rights on July 17, 1736, from the Polish king August III, including the right to hold weekly markets on Sundays and five country fairs a...
, Stawiski
Stawiski
Stawiski is a town in north-eastern Poland, situated within Kolno County, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, approximately 16 kilometres east of Kolno and 74 km west of the regional capital Białystok. Stawiski is the administrative seat of Gmina Stawiski...
, Piątnica
Piatnica
Piątnica is a village in Łomża County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of gmina called Gmina Piątnica...
, Rotki
Rotki
Rotki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Drohiczyn, within Siemiatycze County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland.- World War II:...
, Wizna
Wizna
Wizna is a village in Łomża County of Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. The Biebrza River flows through town. Wizna is also known for the battle of Wizna which took place in its vicinity during the 1939 Invasion of Poland. At present, farming and food production are the primary...
, Łomża and others, ranged from 10,000 to 18,000. Over two thousand people were murdered in the Giełczyn forest outside of town. Many Jews perished from malnutrition and diseases such as dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
and typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. The rest were shipped to Auschwitz for extermination. The ghetto was liquidated on 1 November 1942. Only a small number of the Jews of Łomża survived the Holocaust; some found refuge with Catholic Polish families
Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives—and the lives of their families—to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people...
.
At the end of 1944, the USSR recaptured the territory. Following the Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
the Soviets ceded the city back to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, with population reduced to 12,500 inhabitants. In the years 1946-1975 the oldest part of the city was rebuilt. New housing estates came into existence along with several industrial plants, among them Łomża cotton and furniture factories and starch manufacturing PEPEES, as well as municipal thermal power station. The city transit was established. At the beginning of the 1970s population has reached almost 30,000 inhabitants.
Demographics
(people/km²)|| 1,929.5|| colspan=2| 999.4/km²|| colspan=2| 930.0/km²|}
Łomża is the third largest city in Podlaskie Voivodeship
Podlaskie Voivodeship
Podlaskie Voivodeship , is a voivodeship in northeastern Poland. It borders on Masovian Voivodeship to the west, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship to the northwest, Lublin Voivodeship to the south, the Belarusssian Voblasts of Grodno and Brest to the east, the Lithuanian Counties of Alytus and...
with 63,036 inhabitants. At the end of 2006, the population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
was positive and amounted to 1,3 per cent per 1000 inhabitants whereas balance of migration was negative (-520). The unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
at the end of May 2008 amounted to 10,2%. According to data from 2006, an average income per inhabitant amounted to 2,942.31 zł. Table is based on data from 2007.
Historical population of Łomża between 1808 and 1931
General population, marked in blue. Number of Poles of Jewish faith, marked in green. Source: Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel.Religion
The inhabitants of Łomża have been predominantly Roman Catholic, although over the centuries in addition to the Catholics, followers of other religions have settled there. There is evidence of many Jewish and Protestant gravestones at the Łomża cemetery.Education
History of education in łomża dates back to the early 15th century, when it was founded the first parish. In 1614 habitually residents in a territory of the town formed the College Jezuickie. The College was one of the following rektorów św. Andrew Bobola. The level of education has not decreased after the KEN school pijarom in 1774. Sovereignty zaborców in łomża has created a number of dignitaries, among others. Szymon Konarski, Rafał Krajewski, Jakub Ignacy Weight, Wojciech Szweykowski, Adam Chętnik.Currently in łomża is a well-developed network of public and private schools at all levels. Is here 7 primary schools, 8 schools, 10 secondary schools, 6 universities (including 3 non-public) and 2 schools of art. Level of education in łomża is high, which provide the results of the exams ' and prints in the scale of the country and State. For example I Liceum Ogólnokształcące belongs to the national and Central Poland top schools. In addition, many łomżyńskich the schools have won the title of the school with the class. From 1 January 1999 in Łomża established has Verticillata CKE Restaurants, which includes she/he Podlachian and warmińsko-mazurskie.
Sports
History of the sport in łomża dates back to the end of the 18th century, when in 1897 was held the first races wioślarskie amateurs. Two years later, began efforts to establish the society of wioślarskiego, which zainaugurowało his official activities on January 26, 1902, under the name Łomżyńskiego Society Wioślarskiego.April 16, 1926, was found the first football(Soccer) club, currently ŁKS Łomża. In addition, the City operates several sports clubs representing different disciplines. The most important section in addition to football(Soccer) include volleyball, basketball, athletics and sports struggle. Their most successful Łomżanie would just Athletics, sports fight and kulturystyce. In June 2009 was held in łomża Nationwide Finale Gimnazjady football(Soccer) for boys, in which the local football(Soccer) team from a public high school No. 8 took about 3. place. Łomża sport is supported by the society for Promoting physical culture and Łomża School Sports Association.
In 1998 opened an indoor arena in which held all-Poland and international events, for example. Indoor football(Soccer) matches, Eastern martial arts tournaments or tournaments of football(Soccer), played.
In 2009 was signed a contract for the construction of a municipal swimming pool, which will be the second such facility in the city. Expected date of delivery of investments is the beginning of 2011. Construction of the swimming pool is co-financed from the resources of the EU's regional operational programme Voivodship for the years 2007-2013, and its total cost will be $35.2 million.
Economy
Łomża economy is closely connected to its natural environment, with agricultural and forestry industries at the forefront of the region's economic development. The economy is ecologically friendly, including the food industries, the brewing, electronics, the manufacture of building materials and furniture, the production and processing of agricultural crops, as well as tourism and agro-tourism.Even the largest companies employ less than 1,000 workers, even though a number of firms are listed on the Podlasie Top One Hundred Entrepreneurs. Among them, the Łomża Brewery
Browar Łomża
The Browar Łomża is Poland's fourth largest brewery. Browar Lomza Sp. z o.o. launched the plant in 1968. In 2007 it was purchased by Royal Unibrew. The Browar Łomża brewery is located in Łomża, Poland. In 2011 it was sold to company Van Pur.-Brand:...
(large scale producer of beer), DOMEL (producer of unleaded windows), FARGOTEX (importer of upholstery fabrics), Konrad (importer of farm animals), Łomża furniture factory (Łomżyńska Fabryka Mebli), PEPEES (producer of potato starch), Purzeczko (the personal and property protection). On top of that, the city is a registered office of the Podlasie Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture.
By the end of 2007, the number of people steadily employed in Łomża was 13,408, including 7,170 women, however, the unemployment rate (as of 2009) remained considerably high at 14.1 per cent. The number of businessess registered by the end of 2008 was 6,421 of which 6,280 belonged to the private sector.
See also
- ŁKS Łomża
- Łomża Landscape Park
- Łomża Department
- List of cities in Poland