Place:Żory, Ślaskie, Poland

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NameŻory
TypeTown
Located inŚlaskie, Poland
Also located inKatowice, Poland    
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Żory is a town and city county in Silesian Voivodeship, Poland with 62,462 inhabitants (2019). In terms of population, it is the seventeenth city in Silesia, and the 62nd most populous city in Poland. Previously it was in Katowice Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located in the historic Upper Silesia region about southwest of Katowice.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The settlement on the road from Cieszyn to Kraków was first mentioned in a 1258 deed, when it was part of fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. Żory is one of the oldest towns in Silesia, it was granted city rights according to Magdeburg Law on 24 February 1272 by Duke Władysław of Opole. It remained part of the Upper Silesian Duchy of Opole, since 1327 a Bohemian fief, until in 1532 it was incorporated into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In 1645 along with the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz it returned to Poland under the House of Vasa, and in 1666 it fell back to Bohemia. In the 18th century, it was centre of cloth manufacturing, later of metal and machining industry.

After the First Silesian War it was annexed by Prussia in 1742, and from 1871 it was part of Germany. In the 18th century, Żory belonged to the tax inspection region of Prudnik. After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence, and upon the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite, Żory passed to the Second Polish Republic, and was administratively part of the Silesian Voivodeship, though 69.4% of the citizens had voted for Germany.

Żory was the site of a battle between Poles and the invading Germans on the first day of World War II, September 1, 1939. Afterwards it was occupied by Nazi Germany. From 1942 to 1945, the Germans operated a Polenlager forced labour camp for Poles in the city. Among its prisoners were children whose parents were either arrested or deported to Germany.[1] Poles expelled in 1942 from several villages and the town of Szczyrk were also temporarily held in the camp before deportation to forced labour to Germany. In the final stages of the war, in January 1945, the Germans murdered 40 prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the city during a death march. The city was conquered by Soviet and Czechoslovak troops in March 1945, the German population was expelled, and the city was restored to Poland.

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