Tomaszów Lubelski t is a town in south-eastern 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 20,261 inhabitants (2004). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship

Lublin Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Lublin Voivodeship is divided into 24 counties : 4 city counties and 20 land counties. These are further divided into 213 gminas....

 (since 1999), previously in Zamość Voivodeship

Zamosc Voivodeship

Zamość Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in years 1975–1998, superseded by Lublin Voivodeship.Capital city: ZamośćMajor cities and towns :* Zamość * Biłgoraj...

 (1975-1998). It is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County

Tomaszów Lubelski County

Tomaszów Lubelski County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Lublin Voivodeship, 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. Its administrative seat and largest...

.

History

The town was founded at the beginning of the 17th century by Jan Zamoyski

Jan Zamoyski

Jan Zamoyski , was a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman, magnate, 1st duke/ordynat of Zamość. Royal Secretary since 1566, Lesser Kanclerz ) of the Crown since 1576, Lord Grand-Chancellor of the Crown since 1578, and Grand Hetman of the Crown since 1581...

, and is known by its current name since 1613. It obtained its city charter in 1621. The area around the city saw serious fighting in 1914 during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Throughout its history the town had a significant Jewish community, which numbered over 5,000 in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II, making up half its population. The town found itself under the German occupation following the invasion of Poland in 1939. In the course of the Holocaust, the Nazi Germans first placed the Jews in a ghetto established in the town, then exterminated them in 1942 at Belzec death camp

Belzec extermination camp

Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...

 located a few kilometers south of the town.

Famous people from Tomaszów Lubelski

• Joanna Pacuła
• Leon Pinsker
• Dorota Gardias-Skóra