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Oświęcim is a railroad junction, a center of chemical, electrical machinery and building materials industries,[3] and home toUnia Oświęcim, one of the most accomplished Polishice hockey teams.
The name of the town is of Polish/Slavic extraction, possibly derived from the owner of a Slavicgord which existed there in theMiddle Ages, or derived from the Polish word " oświęcić", meaning "to sanctify". Some Medieval spellings of the name are: Oswenin (1217), Osvencin (1280), Hospencin (1283), Osswetem (1290), Uspencin (1297), Oswentim (1302) etc. It has been spelled many different ways and known by many different languages over time, including Czech, German, and Latinised versions.[note 2]
The town was an important center of commerce from the late Middle Ages onward. Fourteenth-century German-speaking merchants called it Auswintz; by the 15th century, this name had become Auschwitz. It later became the capital city of the "Polish"Duchy of Oświęcim. From 1772 to 1918 Oświęcim belonged to theHabsburgKingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (from 1804 acrownland of theAustrian Empire and 1867Austria-Hungary), and both Polish and German names were in official use. The town was annexed intoNazi Germany during World War II and the name Auschwitz was used. It became known as Oświęcim after 27 January 1945, when theWehrmacht was pushed out by theRed Army.[citation needed]
Oświęcim lies at the intersection ofNational Road 44 and local roads 933 and 948. Oświęcim'sold town is east of theSoła, with the Main Market Square (Rynek Główny) at its center. The railway station is across the river in the northwest part of town; the main museum is on the west side. TheAuschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is in the village ofBrzezinka, to the west of the railway station. The chemical works are east of the town.
The main bus station of the town lies in the east of the town, and local bus services are operated byPKS Oświęcim. ThePKP railway services are available toKraków,Katowice andCzechowice-Dziedzice, and internationally toVienna andPrague. The nearest airport is 60 kilometres (37 miles) away, atKraków Balice. According to the 2002 data, Oświęcim is 30 km2, of which forests comprise only 1%. The neighbouringboroughs (gmina) areChelmek,Libiąż, and the gmina of Oświęcim.
Oświęcim has a warm-summerhumid continental climate characterised by four distinct seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.[4] Located in theOświęcim Basin, the town experiences relatively highprecipitation that averages slightly below 1000 mm per year.[5] The precipitation is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, though the spring and summer seasons tend to receive more. Summers are warm and humid, but frequently cloudy due to the influence of polar maritime air masses; winters are cold and windy, with snow cover.[6]Fog is very common throughout the year.[7] Due to its frequency, fog is considered one of the town's trademarks.[8]
In 1457 Polish KingCasimir IV Jagiellon bought the rights to Oświęcim. In 1471, Casimir IV and his sonVladislaus stayed in the city before Vladislaus set off toPrague for his coronation as King of Bohemia.[11] Owing to Oświęcim's location on the trade route towardsSilesia andMoravia, in 1539 the townspeople were granted a royalprivilege authorizing trade in salt fromWieliczka.[11] On 25 February 1564, KingSigismund II Augustus issued a bill integrating the former Duchies of Oświęcim and Zator into the Kingdom of Poland. Both lands were attached to theKraków Voivodeship andLesser Poland Province, forming theSilesian County. Before 1564, Oświęcim was semi-independent in Poland and enjoyed an extensive degree of autonomy, similarly toRoyal Prussia.[12] Staple rights were granted in 1565, and confirmed in 1647 and 1667.[11] The town later became one of the centers ofJewish culture in Poland.[13]
In the second half of the 19th century, Oświęcim became an important rail junction. During the same period, the town burned in several fires, such as the fire of 23 August 1863, when two-thirds of Oświęcim burned, including the town hall and two synagogues; a new town hall was built between 1872 and 1875. In another fire in 1881, the parish church, a school, and a hospital burned down. In 1910, Oświęcim became the seat of astarosta, and in 1917–18 a new district, Nowe Miasto, was founded. In 1915, a high school was opened. AfterWorld War I, the town became part of theSecond Polish Republic's Kraków Voivodeship (Województwo Krakowskie). Until 1932, Oświęcim was the seat of a county, but on 1 April 1932, the County of Oświęcim was divided between the County ofWadowice, and the County ofBiała Krakowska.
The Kleuger family, 1931/1933.Shimson Kleuger, pictured to the right of the center in a cap, would later become known as the last Jewish resident of Oświęcim[16]
There were approximately 8,000 Jews in the town on the eve of World War II, comprising less than half the population.[17]The Nazisannexed the area to Germany in October 1939 in theGau ofUpper Silesia, which became part of the "second Ruhr" by 1944.
In 1940, Nazi Germany usedforced labor to build a new subdivision to house Auschwitz guards and staff, and built a large chemical plant ofIG Farben in 1941 on the eastern outskirts of the town. Polish residents of several districts were forced to abandon their houses, as the Germans wanted to keep the area empty aroundAuschwitz concentration camp. They planned a 40 square kilometres (15 sq mi) buffer zone around the camp, and theyexpelled Polish residents in two stages in 1940 and 1941. All the residents of theZasole district were forced to abandon their homes. In thePławy andHarmęże districts, more than 90 percent of the buildings were destroyed and the residents of Pławy were transported toGorlice to fend for themselves. Altogether, some 17,000 people in Oświęcim itself and surrounding villages were forced to leave their homes, eight villages were wiped off the map, and the population of Oświęcim shrank to 7,600 by April 1941.
The communist SovietRed Army invaded the town and liberated the camp on 27 January 1945, and then opened two of their own temporary camps for Germanprisoners of war in the complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Auschwitz Soviet camp existed until autumn 1945, and the Birkenau camp lasted until spring 1946. Some 15,000 Germans were interned there. Furthermore, there was a camp of Communist secret police (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) near the rail station in the complex of formerGemeinschaftslager. Its prisoners were members of theNSDAP,Hitlerjugend, andBDM, as well as German civilians, theVolksdeutsche, and Upper Silesians who were disloyal to Poland.
After World War II, new housing complexes in the town were developed with large buildings of rectangular and concrete constructions. The chemical industry became the main employer of the town and in later years, the service industry and trade were added. The many visits to the concentration camp memorial sites have become an important source of income for the town's businesses.
After the end of communism, by the mid-1990s, employment at the chemical works (namedFirma Chemiczna Dwory SA from 1997 to 2007,Synthos SA since then) had dropped from 10,000 in the communist era to only 1,500 people. In 1952, the County of Oświęcim was re-created, and the town until 1975 belonged to Kraków Voivodeship. In 1975–1999, it was part ofBielsko-Biała Voivodeship. In 1979, Oświęcim was visited by PopeJohn Paul II, and on 1 September 1980, a localSolidarity office was created at the chemical plant. On 28 May 2006, the town was visited by PopeBenedict XVI.[18]
Oświęcim is culturally regarded as part ofUpper Silesia.[19] To this end, names such as 'Oświęcim Silesia' (Polish:Śląsk Oświęcimski) were used by Polish and German geographers, and Silesia was defined as the territory from the mouth of the riverWarta to theOder, up to Oświęcim.[19] German nationalists of the 19th and 20th centuries argued that Oświęcim belonged to the German nation, as it is considered a part of Silesia, which led to its annexation directly into Nazi Germany instead of being included in theGeneral Government.[20]
Oświęcim is considered to be the eastern frontier of theSilesian language.[21] As the easternmost point of linguistic Silesia, Silesian speech in Oświęcim is influenced by theLesser Poland dialect and has distinct features such as partialmazuration (Polish:mazurzenie) - there is only one nasal 'a', which loses its nasality by becoming a non-labialised 'o' (rozpocoć – rozpocząć).[22] Linguist Alexander Andrason outlines the linguistic area of Silesian borderland which Oświęcim is a part of, with features that distinguish it from other Silesian dialects as well as the Polish ones - for example, 'ą' and 'ę' are merged into /ɔ̃/ in Oświęcim Silesian.[23]
The sports club KS Unia Oświęcim was established in 1946. In 1999, the remaining four departments (ice hockey, swimming, figure skating, and association football) separated into their own clubs:TH Unia Oświęcim (ice hockey), UKŁF Unia Oświęcim (figure skating), UKP Unia Oświęcim (figure skating), Zasole-Unia Oświęcim (football), UKH Unia Oświęcim (youth ice hockey), and UKHK Unia Oświęcim (women's ice hockey). In the past, Unia had boxing, table tennis, volleyball, athletics, cycling, gymnastics, chess, motorcycle racing, lawn tennis, skiing, bridge, handball, and basketball departments. Theice hockey team, TH Unia Oświęcim, was crownedPolish champions 9 times,[24] most recently in 2024.
Another sports club with a long tradition is KS Soła Oświęcim, an association football club founded in 1919.[25]
^"Główny Urząd Statystyczny" [Central Statistical Office] (in Polish). To search: Select "Miejscowości (SIMC)" tab, select "fragment (min. 3 znaki)" (minimum 3 characters), enter town name in the field below, click "WYSZUKAJ" (Search).
^abc"Oświęcim".Encyklopedia PWN (in Polish). Retrieved24 February 2025.
^Dulias, Renata (2013).Denudacja antropogeniczna na obszarach górniczych na przykładzie Górnośląskiego Zagłębia Węglowego (in Polish). Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski. p. 22.ISBN978-83-62652-47-1.
^Andrew Charlesworth; Robert Guzik; Michał Paszkowski; Alison Stenning (2005). "Przestrzenne bariery upamiętnienia: Oświęcim i państwowe muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau".Geografia i Sacrum (in Polish).1. Kraków: Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przesztrennej UJ: 125.ISBN8388424424.
^"Klimat Oświęcim" (in Polish). pl.climate-data.org. 2019. Archived fromthe original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved19 February 2024.
^abcdefSłownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich (in Polish). Vol. VII. Warszawa. 1886. pp. 747–748.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Higgins, J. Patrick (2023).The Spirit of Laws in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1573-1791: Continuity, Change, and Conservative Jurisprudence. Łódź. p. 111.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Prussian General Staff,The Campaign of1866 in Germany, 1907, page 97.
^Balck, William, trans byWalter Krueger,Tactics, Volume II: Cavalry, Field, and Heavy Artilliery in Field Warfare; U.S. Cavalry Association, 1914, pg. 5
^abArtur Fabiś; Artur Łacina-Łanowski; Łukasz Tomczyk (2013).Kreatywna starość: 15-lecie oświęcimskiego Uniwersytetu Trzeciego Wieku (in Polish). Oświęcim: Wydawnictwo Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej. pp. 16–17.ISBN978-83-930661-7-9.
^Nowakowski, Andrzej (1985). "Oświęcim i Zator lennem czeskim".Przegląd Historyczny (in Polish).76 (3):533–545.
^Rybka, Piotr (2017).Gwarowa wymowa mieszkańców Górnego Śląska w ujęciu akustycznym (in Polish). Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach. p. 58.
^Kluz, Tomasz (11 October 2008).Zróżnicowanie regionalne i dialektalne współczesnego języka polskiego Dialekt małopolski i dialekt śląski (in Polish). Masaryk University. p. 85.
^Andrason, Alexander (6 October 2021).Polish Borrowings in Wymysorys:A Formal Linguistic Analysis of Germano-Slavonic Language Contact in Wilamowice. Reykjavík: University of Iceland. p. 116.ISBN978-9935-9563-9-2.
The list includes the 107 urban municipalities governed by acity mayor (prezydent miasta) instead of a town mayor (burmistrz) ·Cities with powiat rights are initalics · Voivodeship cities are inbold
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