Ozorków

Ozorków () is a town on the Bzura River in the Łódź metropolitan area in the Łódź Voivodeship in central Poland, with 19,128 inhabitants (2020). Equipped with modern spinning and carding machines from England and the Netherlands, the plant began production in 1823 and quickly achieved major sales in Poland, Lithuania and Russia, and expanded in the following years. In 1866, under the control of Polish Count Feliks Łubieński, Ozorków became a protected city of the Russian Empire, which resulted in greater investment opportunities.

The First World War caused a further economic decline of the town. It was not until the period of independent statehood that it became more attractive for foreign and domestic investors. Already in the early twenties, Ozorków received a railway connection with Łódź and Kutno, and with the electrification of the town carried in 1928, a tramway was built between Ozorków, Zgierz and Łódź (between 1922 and 1928 the line was operated by a steam tram). During the interwar period (1918–1939) two public primary schools as well as a recreational centre were built in the town.

thumb|left|Jewish men led to execution by German gendarmes, 10 April 1942

The time of the German occupation of Poland (World War II), beginning in September 1939, was a tragic period in the history of the town. Already on September 12, 1939, the Germans murdered some inhabitants of Ozorków in a massacre of 13 Poles in nearby Łagiewniki (present-day district of Łódź). The town was incorporated directly into the Third Reich and between 1943 and 1945 it was called Brunnstadt. The extermination policy of the occupier (the murder of 6,000 Jews and the persecution of the Polish population) resulted in a drastic population decrease. In 1940, the Germans expelled hundreds of Poles from the town, and also established a transit camp at the local movie theater for Poles expelled from the area. Young people were then deported from the camp to forced labour in Germany, and children and older people were deported to the General Government (German-occupied central Poland), while their homes, shops and workshops were handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.

After 1945, there was an expansion and modernization of the cotton and wool industry applied by the new Soviet-installed communist government, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. In the 1950s the development of housing and urban infrastructure resulted in rapid population increase.

thumb|Saint Joseph's Church on the martketplace

Today Ozorków is rapidly increasing in the role of services and slowly loses its former industrial character.

Demographics

Notable residents

References

External links