Frampol is a town in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, in

Biłgoraj County Biłgoraj County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lublin Voivodeship, eastern Poland. It was established on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its adminis ...

Lublin Voivodeship Lublin Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in the southeastern part of the country, with its capital being the city of Lublin. The region is named after its largest city and regional capital, Lu ...

. It has 1,431 inhabitants (December 2021), and lies in eastern

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

, near the

Roztocze Roztocze () is a range of hills in east-central Poland and western Ukraine which rises from the Lublin Upland and extends southeastward through Solska Forest and across the border into Ukrainian Podolia. Low and rolling, the range is approximat ...

Upland. Frampol is surrounded by the

Szczebrzeszyn Szczebrzeszyn (; ; ) is a city in southeastern Poland in Lublin Voivodeship, in Zamość County, about west of Zamość. From 1975–1999, it was part of the Zamość Voivodeship administrative district. The town serves as the seat to the Gmina ...

Landscape Park and the

Janów Lubelski Janów Lubelski is a town in southeastern Poland. It has 11,938 inhabitants (2006). Situated in the Lublin Voivodship, Janów Lubelski belongs to Lesser Poland, and is located in southeastern corner of this historic Polish province. It is the cap ...

Forest. The town is a junction of two local roads (the 74th and the 835th). The distance to

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

is 68 kilometers.

History

The town was founded in 1717 by Count Marek Antoni Butler, with a unique, highly symmetric layout of streets in the shape of concentric rectangles around a large central square. Its name, originally spelled ''Franopole'', comes from Franciszka née Szczuka, the wife of Count Butler. In 1735, the Jewish community of Frampol already had its own cemetery, and in 1740, Józef Butler funded a wooden church, which since 1778 exists as a separate parish. In the second half of the 18th century, the town belonged to the Wisłocki family. It was an important center of artisans, mostly cloth makers, and all houses were made of timber. In 1789, King

Stanisław August Poniatowski Stanisław II August (born Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski; 17 January 1732 – 12 February 1798), known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, and as Stanisław August Poniatowski (), was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuani ...

established seven annual

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

s. Frampol belonged to

in the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. The town was annexed by

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

in the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polis ...

in 1795. After the Polish victory in the

Austro-Polish War The Austro-Polish War or Polish-Austrian War was a part of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 (a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and allied states). In this war, Polish forces of ...

of 1809, it became part of the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

, and after the duchy's dissolution in 1815, it fell to the Russian-controlled

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

. In 1921, already in the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

, the population of Frampol was 2,720. During the German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

at the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 90% of the town's buildings were destroyed in a raid carried out by the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

on September 13, 1939. During the German occupation, the town's significant Jewish community was murdered in the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. The town never fully recoveredits population today is less than half of what it was before the war. Frampol, or a fictionalized version thereof, is the setting of many of the best stories of

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...

, including '' Gimpel the Fool''. Artist Irene Lieblich illustrated the Market of Frampol in Isaac Bashevis Singer's book 'A Tale of Three Wishes' from her direct memory of the marketplace of Frampol. This is the only known painting of the Frampol Marketplace as it existed before the full destruction by the German Luftwaffe. Currently, it is one of the smallest towns in Poland. In 1869 Frampol lost its official status as a town, to recover it only in 1993.

References

External links

Official town website

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060926123354/http://izrael.badacz.org/zydzi_w_polsce/katalog_lubelskie_frampol.html Description of the Jewish Cemetery in Frampol {{Gmina Frampol Cities and towns in Lublin Voivodeship Biłgoraj County Populated places established in 1717 1717 establishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Holocaust locations in Poland