Końskie
| Końskie | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | Poland | ||
| Voivodeship : | Holy Cross | ||
| Powiat : | Końskie | ||
| Gmina : | Końskie | ||
| Area : | 17.68 km² | ||
| Geographic location : | 51 ° 12 ′ N , 20 ° 25 ′ E | ||
| Residents : | 19,712 (Dec. 31, 2016) | ||
| Postal code : | 26-200 | ||
| Telephone code : | (+48) 41 | ||
| License plate : | TKN | ||
| Economy and Transport | |||
| Street : | Skarżysko-Kamienna - Radomsko | ||
| Next international airport : | Łódź-Lublinek | ||
| administration | |||
| Website : | www.umkonskie.pl | ||
Końskie is a city in Poland in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship . It is the seat of the urban and rural community Końskie and the Powiat Konecki .
Geographical location
Końskie is located in the north-west of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. The city is located on the edge of the Kielc mountainous region in the south and the Mazovian plain in the north. The area is characterized by many forests.
The national road 74 runs about ten kilometers south-west of Końskie. The Łódź – Dębica railway line, which is no longer used for passenger traffic, runs through the city.
history
The first settlement on the site of today's Końskie existed in the 11th century . The first written record comes from 1124 when it belonged to the Odrowąż family. In 1220 a parish and a church were built. The place had become the center of management of the Odrowąż family's estates and also their religious center. In the middle of the 16th century Końskie had developed into a center of steel processing. In addition to 320 ironworks , there were 40 forges in the area. In the 1880s, Vogt Rafał Małachowic bought Końskie and other villages in the area. It is mainly thanks to the efforts of Jan Małachowic that Końskie was replaced by August III on December 30, 1748 . the city charter was awarded according to Magdeburg law . Due to the new rights, handicrafts developed and, above all, the manufacture of weapons became more important for the place. In the 18th century the importance of the steel industry increased further, blast furnaces were built and the city experienced the greatest economic boom. In the second half of the 18th century, a Jewish cemetery and a wooden synagogue were built, one of the most important wooden synagogues in Poland. In the second half of the 19th century, Count Jan Tarnowski acquired the city, which was called Kinsk (קינסק) in Yiddish . The connection to the rail network over a section of today's railway line Łódź – Dębica took place in 1885. At the beginning of the First World War , the city was occupied by Austrian troops.
After the start of the Second World War , Końskie was bombed by Wehrmacht planes on September 3, 1939 . Among other things, the train station was destroyed.
On September 12, 1939, residents, mostly Jews, were forced to dig a grave for four German soldiers. The rumor - not true - that the dead were mutilated. The situation escalated into acts of violence against the Jews, who finally began to scream in panic and ran from the open square towards a large archway on the opposite row of houses. The lieutenant of the reserve Bruno K. saw the screaming Jews from an approaching military vehicle running towards the gate and opened fire with his pistol. The approximately 40 to 50 Wehrmacht soldiers who were still on the field then began shooting wildly into the crowd of refugees or into the air. 22 people died.
The German film director Leni Riefenstahl protested to Colonel General von Reichenau against the incident; However, she did not finish her documentation about the war against Poland, but stayed on site and also documented the victory parade of the Wehrmacht in front of Hitler in Warsaw on October 5, 1939.
On September 14, von Reichenau had the main culprit K. brought before a field war tribunal in Konskie. The court, consisting of three military judges from 10th Army, came to the conclusion that K. did not act out of military necessity, but with the intention of indiscriminately killing civilians. The defendant was sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter. The other Wehrmacht members who shot blindly into the crowd were not held responsible.
During this time the synagogue was also set on fire and destroyed. A ghetto for the Jews was established and a Judenrat was formed. Since the Polish owners of the land were allowed to continue to use their land, the ghetto was relatively open and the conditions were therefore less bad compared to other ghettos. Despite everything, it was overcrowded. About 7500 people had to live here temporarily, about 2000 of them Jews who had fled from Łódź , Płock and Warsaw .
The ghetto was dissolved in November 1942. Most of the Jews were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp and murdered there. Several hundred Jews were able to hide or stay in the city for work in agriculture or the like. On 6./7. In January 1943, however, they too were first deported to a ghetto in Szydłów and then to Treblinka . Only just under 300 Jews from Końskie survived the Holocaust .
German in charge in this place was the Kreishaupt- and SA -man Dr. jur. Gustav Albrecht (* 1902 in Hamburg) a lawyer, at home a simple administrative assistant, member of the NSDAP since 1937. The war then led him to career. The Jews, who initially made up 46% of the population in this district, did not even get the small food rations provided by the occupier. Albrecht claimed that their starvation was the punishment for having started the war and for having caused the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Germans during the First World War. He wants it to be the other way around now. Albrecht reported to superiors that he would ensure that the Jews starve to death first and only then the Poles. His behavior was based on his own initiative, no corresponding orders to him are known.
During the occupation, the surrounding forests were the site of numerous partisan activities. Among other things, it was here that Major Henryk Dobrzański (alias Hubal ) worked for the first time .
In 1975 the place lost its seat as a powiat and became part of the Kielce Voivodeship . When the administrative units were reformed again in 1999, it got its seat back and became part of the Heiligkreuz Voivodeship .
Religions
The first evidence of a Jewish community comes from the year 1588, when Sigismund III. Wasa was given the right to freely trade in food. In 1796 there were 2534 Jews in the city. In 1827 there are only 1703. After that the number grows continuously and on September 1, 1939 it reaches 6500. The first rabbi known by name was R. Yekutiel , who lived here from 1820 onwards. R. Meir Weingarten began his work in 1922 and was the last rabbi of Końskie.
Population development
| year | 1827 | 1857 | 1921 | 2004 |
| population | 3,367 | 6,521 | 8,291 | 22,454 |
local community
About 36,000 people live in the urban and rural community ( gmina miejsko-wiejska ) Końskie.
coat of arms
The first coat of arms was created with the receipt of town charter in 1748 and showed the initials of Jan Małachowic JKM and the lettering Końskie Wielkie on a red background.
Town twinning
- Šaľa (Slovakia)
- Mohyliw-Podilskyj (Ukraine)
Culture and sights
Buildings
- Palace and park (18th century)
- Parish Church of St. Nicholas (built 1492–1520, rebuilt in the 19th and 20th centuries)
Web links
- Official website of the city (Polish)
- Entry in the Jewish encyclopedia (English)
- Konskie.net.pl portal
Individual evidence
- ^ Literature on Albrecht from Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen. The German district chiefs in occupied Poland. Wallstein, Göttingen 2009 ISBN 3-8353-0477-1 . Abstract in Die Zeit August 27, 2009, p. 84.