Place:Zamość, Lubelskie, Poland

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Zamość is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2014, the population was 65,149.

Zamość was founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski, Grand Chancellor of Poland, who envisioned an ideal city. The historical centre of Zamość was added to the World Heritage List in 1992, following a decision of the sixteenth ordinary session of the World Heritage Committee, held between 7 and 14 December 1992 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States; it was recognized for being "a unique example of a Renaissance town in Central Europe".

Zamość is about from the Roztocze National Park.

History

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

Zamość was founded in 1580 by the Chancellor and Hetman (head of the army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), Jan Zamoyski, on the trade route linking western and northern Europe with the Black Sea. Modelled on Italian trading cities, and built during the late-renaissance period by the Paduan architect Bernardo Morando, Zamość remains a perfect example of a Renaissance town of the late 16th century. It retains its original street layout, fortifications (Zamość Fortress), and a large number of original buildings blending Venetian and central European architectural traditions.

In the 16th century, the city thrived during its most extensive and fastest period of development. It attracted not only Poles but also other nationalities. The city, however, faced numerous invasions, including a Cossack siege led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the leader of the uprising against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1648–1654), and another siege during the Swedish Deluge in 1656. The Swedish army, like the Cossacks, failed to capture the city. Only during the Great Northern War was Zamość occupied, by Swedish and Saxon troops.

In the First Partition of Poland in 1772 the city was annexed by the Habsburg monarchy, forming part of the newly established Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria; the kingdom became a crown land of the Austrian Empire upon its formation in 1804. In 1809 the city was incorporated into the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna made Zamość part of the Kingdom of Poland, also called Congress Poland, which was controlled by the Russian Empire. The city played a considerable role during the November Uprising in 1830–1831 and surrendered as the last Polish resistance point. The fortress was demolished in 1866, allowing the rapid growth of the city beyond its original limits. During the final of stages of World War I, in 1918, local Poles liberated the city from foreign occupation, shortly before Poland officially regained independence.

World War II

In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, German Luftwaffe planes bombed Zamość several times. Over 250 people were killed, mainly civilians.^[1] In early September 1939, the Polish government evacuated a portion of the Polish gold reserve from Warsaw to Zamość, and then further southeast to Śniatyn at the Poland-Romania border, from where it was transported via Romania and Turkey to territory controlled by Polish-allied France. The city was overrun by the Germans during the invasion of Poland and the local garrison, staffed by the Polish infantry regiment of podpułkownik Stanisław Gumowski, was defeated.^[1] On September 27, 1939, Nazi Germany signed a border treaty with the Soviet Union which had invaded Poland from the east, and, consequently, on September 28, 1939, Zamość was handed over to the Red Army – for about a week. The Soviets withdrew on October 5, 1939, along with some 5,000 Jews after a further demarcation line adjustment. The Germans returned to the city on October 8, 1939^[1] and shortly afterwards mass arrests of prominent citizens began. This was as part of the secret A-B Action, the deliberate extermination of Polish intellectuals. The German Nazis created an execution site in the Zamość Rotunda, Gestapo camp, (in German: Gefangenen-Durchgangslager Sicherheitspol, in English: "The transit camp for Security Police prisoners").^[1] More than 8,000 people were massacred there, including displaced residents of the region. In Zamość, Nazi Germans also created a "Transit Camp" on Okrzei Street, for arrested and displaced inhabitants of the Zamość region (including thousands of children)^[1] and camps^[1] of Soviet prisoners of war captured during Operation Barbarossa.^[1]

In 1942, Zamość County, due to its fertile black soil, was chosen for further German colonization in the General Government as part of Generalplan Ost, with the new name of Himmlerstadt, after Heinrich Himmler. The name was later changed to Pflugstadt (Plow City), a reference to the German "plow" that was to "plow the East". Neither name endured.

Local people resisted the German occupiers with great determination; they escaped into the forests, organised self-defence, gave help to those who were expelled, and rescued kidnapped children from German hands by bribery (see Zamość Uprising). The Nazis found it difficult to find many families suitable for settlement in the area, and those who did settle often fled in fear, because the former Polish residents would burn down houses or kill their inhabitants.

In 1942–1943, tens of thousands of inhabitants of the region were ethnically cleansed by the Nazi occupiers, to make space for German settlers in order to ensure Germanisation of the area. Most former inhabitants were deported to forced labor camps in Germany, Nazi concentration camps or extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Bełżec.

Post-war period

After World War II, Zamość began a period of development. In the 1970s and 1980s the population grew rapidly (from 39,100 in 1975 to 68,800 in 2003), as the city started to gain significant profits from the old trade routes linking Germany with the Ukraine and the ports on the Black Sea. During the years 1975–1998 Zamość was the capital of Zamość Voivodeship.

Jewish Community

Zamość was an important centre of Chasidic Judaism. The Qahal of Zamość was founded in 1588 when Jan Zamoyski agreed to Jewish settlement in the city. The first Jewish settlers were mainly Sephardi Jews coming from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. In the 17th century, Ashkenazi Jews also settled in the city and soon became the majority of the Jewish population. The settlement rights given by Jan Zamoyski were re-confirmed in 1684 by Marcin Zamoyski, the fourth Ordynat of the Zamość estate.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Jewish inhabitants were influenced by the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah. The late nineteenth century saw the spread of Hasidic Judaism. In Zamość there was a Jewish synagogue, two houses of worship, a ritual bathhouse, a hospital and a slaughterhouse. The best preserved remnant of the Jewish community is the now restored Zamość Synagogue. Zamość was home to many prominent Jews, including poet Solomon Ettinger (1799–1855) and writer Isaac Leib Peretz. In 1827, 2,874 Jews lived in the city and this had risen by 1900 to 7,034. The increase continued, so that by 1921 the Jewish population stood at 9,383 (49.3% of the total population), including significant landowners within the city.

On the eve of World War II, more than 12,500 Jews lived in Zamość; 43 percent of the population of 28,100.^[1] Soon after the handing over to the Germans by the Soviet Union on October 8, 1939, the Nazis instituted the Judenrat, through which to control the Jews, and in December 1939 created an open ghetto in the Nowa Osada neighbourhood.

Jews deported from the newly formed Warthegau province in German-annexed western Poland were transported to Zamość^[2] and in April 1941 the ghetto was moved to the New Town and 7,000 Jews were ordered to relocate there. The ghetto was not enclosed and many Jews escaped to the Soviet Union. It was liquidated before the end of November 1942;^[1] deportations had begun in April, with some 3,000 Jews sent to the Bełżec extermination camp in a Holocaust train consisting of 30 cattle cars.^[2] In October, the Nazis shot 500 Jews in the streets and deported 4,000 Jewish prisoners via the Izbica Ghetto transfer point to Bełżec for gassing. They were transported without any food or water. Although the distance was relatively short, the transports would take several days, and many died en route.^[2] The secret Polish Council to Aid Jews "Żegota", established by the Polish resistance movement operated in the city.

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