Raba Wyżna is a
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...
in
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 ...
, situated in
Lesser Poland Voivodeship,
Nowy Targ County. It is a seat of
Raba Wyżna Commune. As of 2006, the village had 4116 inhabitants. Raba Wyżna is also the birthplace of
Stanisław Dziwisz, trusted secretary to
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
.
History
1500s-1800s
Settlement began at what is now Raba Wyżna in the 1550s. According to local records, in the year 1581 the village consisted of 43 farms.
The first church in Raba Wyżna was a small, wooden church called the church of St. Stanisław Bishop and Martyr, a Catholic church built in 1581. Though the Raba Wyżna church was initially part of the Rabka parish, by 1618 Raba Wyżna became its own parish. In 1668 a new church was built in the village and was consecrated by Bishop Mikołaj Oborski of
Krakow.
In 1846-1847 the village and surrounding areas suffered a typhus outbreak and a great famine due to crop failure. Over 1/3 of the village inhabitants died. According to the 1847 record books, in Raba Wyżna alone 455 people died, and 877 remained alive in the parish. In the nearby village of
Spytkowice
Spytkowice is a village in Wadowice County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Spytkowice, Wadowice County, Gmina Spytkowice. It lies approximately north of Wadowice ...
511 people died that same year. The number of corpses overwhelmed the church, and a new cemetery was built out of necessity in September of 1847.
First and Second World Wars
The first world war touched the village of Raba Wyzna, and the Austrian army pillaged the town and stole the church bell.
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
brought more chaos to the village, causing some local inhabitants to leave their homes. On September 2, 1939 a battle between the Germans and Polish armies swept through the town, resulting in 40 homes being burnt to the ground and many civilians killed. The local church was plundered, books were burned, and the church bells were stolen by the German army. The day after the battle, a group of local men on their way to church were kidnapped by the German army and transported to the
Mauthausen concentration camp
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...
in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. The German army occupied the town from 1939 until 1946. In 1942 the church was temporarily closed due to a
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
outbreak in the town.
In 1946, the German occupation had ended and the rebuilding of the town began. In 1947 a new church bell were purchased, weighing 300kg. In 1968 two more bells were purchased for the church, affectionately called "Stanislaw" and "Jozef."
External links
Official site of Raba WyżnaRaba Wyżna parish websiteScanned Raba Wyżna church records, made available by the Polish Genealogical SocietySearchable index of Raba Wyżna church records
References
Villages in Nowy Targ County
{{LesserPoland-geo-stub
it:Raba Wyżna