Otwock is a city in east-central

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, some southeast of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

, with 44,635 inhabitants (2019). Otwock is a part of the Warsaw Agglomeration. It is situated on the right bank of

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

River below the mouth of Swider River. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Swidermajer. Otwock is situated in the

Masovian Voivodship The Masovian Voivodeship, also known as the Mazovia Province ( pl, województwo mazowieckie ) is a voivodeship ( province) in east-central Poland, with its capital located in the city of Warsaw, which also serves as the capital of the country. ...

since 1999; previously, it was in Warszawa Voivodship (1975–1998). It is the capital of

Otwock County __NOTOC__ Otwock County ( pl, powiat otwocki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Masovian Voivodeship, east-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government refo ...

. The town covers the area of . Forested areas make up 23% of the territory.

History

Even though the first mention of a village called ''Otwosko'' comes from the early 15th century, Otwock did not fully develop until the second half of the 19th century, when in 1877 the Vistula River Railroad was opened, which ran from Mława via

, to

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

and

Chełm Chełm (; uk, Холм, Kholm; german: Cholm; yi, כעלם, Khelm) is a city in southeastern Poland with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some ...

. Otwock, which is located along the line, became a popular suburb, with numerous spas and several notable guests, including

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...

and Władysław Reymont, who wrote his

Nobel prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning novel Chłopi there. In 1916, Otwock was incorporated as a town and became the seat of a

powiat A ''powiat'' (pronounced ; Polish plural: ''powiaty'') is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture ( LAU-1, formerly NUTS-4) in other countries. The term "''powiat ...

. In 1936 railway connection ''Warsaw - Otwock'' was electrified as the first rail line in Poland.

World War II

Following the Nazi–Soviet

Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

in December 1939, the German authorities established a

Jewish ghetto In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...

in Otwock. A murderous

Action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

euthanasia program was carried out by the Nazis in the local Zofiówka Sanatorium for the psychiatric patientsThe statistical data compiled on the basis o
"Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland"
by ''

Virtual Shtetl The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland. History The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June ...

Museum of the History of the Polish Jews POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...

, as well a
"Getta Żydowskie," by ''Gedeon''
and "Ghetto List" by Michael Peters at www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm . Accessed 12 July 2011. in order to confine its

Jewish population As of 2020, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 15 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. This number rises to 18 million with the addition of the "connected" Jewish pop ...

for the purpose of persecution and exploitation. "The War Against The Jews."
''The Holocaust Chronicle,'' 2009. Chicago, Il. Accessed 21 June 2011. The Ghetto was liquidated between August and 19 September 1942, when 75% of its Jewish population of 12,000–15,000 numbering at around 8,000 were assembled by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

at a layover yard in Otwock ''(pictured)'' and transported in cattle trucks to

extermination camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...

and

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

.Sabina Bauman
"Czwarty marsz" (The Fourth March of the Living)
''Linia otwocka'' 26 September 2005. Jews who remained were summarily shot at Reymonta Street soon after.
Sekcja terenowa Polskiej Rady Chrześcijan i Żydów (Otwock Branch o
Poland’s Advisory of Christians and Jews
); Zbigniew Nosowski, President. Otwock is the hometown of Irena Sendler (1910 – 2008), the Polish humanitarian who saved thousands of Jewish children during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

; as well as Krystyna Dańko, both awarded the titles of

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

. Writer Calel Perechodnik, a

Jewish Ghetto Police The Jewish Ghetto Police or Jewish Police Service (german: Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei or ''Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst''), also called the Jewish Police by Jews, were auxiliary police units organized within the Nazi ghettos by local '' Judenrat' ...

man from Otwock also hailed from this town. Following the liberation, a children's home for Holocaust survivors was established in Otwock.A Time to Heal: The Story of the Children's Home in Otwock
an online exhibition by

Economy

In 1958, Ewa, the first Polish

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat fr ...

was activated in Swierk district of Otwock. A second research reactor, Maria, was erected in 1974. Otwock is home to a sports club Start Otwock (founded in 1924). The club is renowned for its weight-lifters such as

Szymon Kołecki Szymon Piotr Kołecki (; born 12 October 1981) is a Polish former Olympic Champion weightlifter and current mixed martial artist. He was the silver medalist at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and a gold medalist at the 2008 Olympic Games in ...

and Marcin Dołęga. Also, the Start Club's own prodigy is football forward Janusz Żmijewski who in the 1960s played for Legia Warszawa and the national team of Poland.

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Otwock is twinned with: *

Lennestadt Lennestadt (occasionally also ''die Lennestadt'') lies in the Sauerland in southeast North Rhine-Westphalia and is a community in Olpe district. It is the district's most populous municipality. Lennestadt itself is not an actual town but a commun ...

, Germany *

Saint-Amand-Montrond Saint-Amand-Montrond () is a commune in the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France and the historical province of Bourbonnais. Saint-Amand-Montrond literally translates to Saint Amand round hill, despite not being on a round ...

, France

References

* {{Authority control Cities and towns in Masovian Voivodeship Otwock County Masovian Voivodeship (1526–1795) Warsaw Governorate Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland