Chrzanów () is a town in southern Poland with 35,651 inhabitants as of December 2021. Jewish residents were resettled to a ghetto, created in 1941. It was not surrounded by walls, like in other Polish towns, nevertheless the Jews were not allowed to venture outside the ghetto. From 1942 the Germans started sending Chrzanów's Jews to the death camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The last transport of Jews from Chrzanów to Birkenau was organized by the Germans in February 1943.

On 29 April 1942 the Germans hanged seven Jews in Krzyska Street in Chrzanow. The seven Jews were accused of illegally baking bread. The victims were Israel Gerstner (bakery owner), Chaim Gerstner, Szymszen Gerstner, Szaja Szpangelet, Fajwel Waloman, Israel Frisz and an unknown man from Olkusz.

thumb|Memorial to local victims of the [[Katyn massacre and victims of the Smolensk air disaster]]

German occupation ended on 24 January 1945 when Chrzanów was taken over by Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The town escaped serious damage in this last chapter of its war history (about one-fourth of the town was damaged). The population decreased by almost half. From 30 January 1945 the town was administered first by the Town Council and then by the National Town Council. Due to ruthless political methods, local administration was soon seized by the local and incoming communists, although the communists themselves constituted a tiny fraction of the politically active residents.

Since 1945

In 1949, Chrzanów had almost 15,000 residents, increasing to 20,000 in 1960, to over 30,000 in 1975 and to 53,000 in 1993. After 1945, new enterprises were created in the town (e.g. a dairy, a cold storage plant, a slaughterhouse) and new residential areas (housing estates - from 1961, - from 1979, and so on) and cultural centres (e.g. County Cultural Centre, the construction of which was initiated in 1959, and Chrzanów Museum founded in 1960). In 1970-71 a new town centre was constructed focusing around the Millennium Square () and the Victory and Liberty Monument. In 1975, following an administrative reform abolishing counties (), Chrzanów ceased to be a county seat. Further, the town was detached from its original Province of Cracow, to which it belonged since restoration of Poland's independence after World War I, and annexed to the Province of Katowice until 1999. Since 1999 Chrzanów has been a county seat in Małopolskie, or Lesser Poland Voivodeship.

Demographics

Detailed data as of 31 December 2021:

  • Janusz Szrom (born 1968), jazz singer
  • Michał Gajownik (1981–2009), Olympic canoeist

International relations

Twin towns — sister cities

Chrzanów is twinned with:

  • Harnes, France
  • Nyékládháza, Hungary
  • Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • Jan Pęckowski: Chrzanów miasto powiatowe w województwie krakowskiem, Chrzanów 1934
  • Ziemia chrzanowska i Jaworzno, Kraków 1969
  • Chrzanów, studia z dziejów miasta i regionu, Chrzanów 1998,
  • Chrzanów and its Neighbourhood. Tourist Guide, Chrzanów 2008,
  • Chrzanow; the Life and Destruction of a Jewish Shtetl
  • Jewish Community in Chrzanów on Virtual Shtetl