Pilica () is a town in

Zawiercie County __NOTOC__ Zawiercie County ( pl, powiat zawierciański) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local governmen ...

Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship, or Silesia Province ( pl, województwo śląskie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in southern Poland, centered on the historic region known as Upper Silesia ('), with Katowice serving as its capital. Despite the Silesian V ...

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 ...

, with 1,936 inhabitants (2019).

History

Since the beginning of its existence, Pilica was part of

Lesser Poland Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a ...

. In the years 1115–1118 testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty, Pilica became part of the district of Kraków. The probable date of its

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

is 1393. Several years after the uprising of 1 January 1870, Pilica lost its town rights under the Tsar's

ukase In Imperial Russia, a ukase () or ukaz (russian: указ ) was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader ( patriarch) that had the force of law. "Edict" and " decree" are adequate translations using the terminology and concep ...

of June 1, 1869, until it was regained in 1994.

Jewish community

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

are first mentioned in Pilica in 1581, when they are accused of insulting the host. The historian Meier Balaban notes in his book ''The History of the Jews of Kraków and Kazimierz 1304–1868'' (in Polish): “In the 16th Century the Jewish Kehilla of Krakow was subdivided into seven regional districts: Olkusz, Chrzanow, Wisnicz, Sacz, Bobowa, Pilica, Bedzin, Oshpitzin, and Wolbrom.” Rabbi Pinchas Eliyahu Rotenberg, the nephew of Rabbi

Yitzchak Meir Alter Yitzchak Meir Rotenberg-Alter ( yi, יצחק מאיר אלטער, pl, Icchak Meir Rothenberg Alter, he, יצחק מאיר אלתר) (1799 – 10 March 1866), was the first Rebbe of the Ger Hasidic dynasty, which he founded in the town of G� ...

of Gur, was rabbi of the town until his death in 1903. In 1905 Pilica became a famous centre of

Hasidism Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism ( Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of cont ...

. After a famous tzaddik from

Góra Kalwaria Góra Kalwaria (; "Calvary Mountain", yi, גער, ''Ger'') is a town on the Vistula River in the Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is situated approximately southeast of Warsaw and has a population of around 12,109 (as of 201 ...

died – Rabbi

Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter ( he, יהודה אריה ליב אלתר, 15 April 1847 – 11 January 1905), also known by the title of his main work, the ''Sfas Emes'' (Ashkenazic Pronunciation) or ''Sefat Emet'' (Modern Hebrew), was a Hasidic rabbi ...

– a considerable number of Hasidim started to go on pilgrimages to the rabbi's brother-in-law, Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Justman author of ''Siftei Tzadik''. The latter, on the other hand, was Pilica's rabbi. By 1921, the majority of the town's residents were Jewish, with a Jewish population of 1,877 compared to a population of 3,299 overall. The town was occupied by the German army in September 1939. 2,000 Jews were kept imprisoned in a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...

. In 1942, all the Jews were firstly transferred to the Wolbrom ghetto and then to the concentration camps. Today, no Jews live in Pilica.

References

External links

*
Pilica
Official website
Jewish Community in Pilica
on Virtual Shtetl {{DEFAULTSORT:Pilica Cities and towns in Silesian Voivodeship Zawiercie County Kraków Voivodeship (14th century – 1795) Kielce Governorate Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939) Holocaust locations in Poland