Sieradz () is a city on the Warta river in central Poland with 40,891 inhabitants (2021). During the January Uprising, on 18 September 1863, Polish insurgents attacked Russian troops stationed in the town. Further clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops took place on 24 January and 18 June 1864. After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the town.

World War II

With the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Sieradz was attacked on 9 September and occupied by the Wehrmacht. Annexed by Nazi Germany, it was renamed Schieratz and administered as part of the county or district (kreis) of the same name within Reichsgau Wartheland. Estimates are that at least 40% of the population of Sieradz was Jewish prior to the German occupation. Today, Sieradz commemorates a Day of Judaism each year in January.

In mid-September 1939, the Germans organized a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in the local prison, in which they held nearly 3,000 Polish soldiers, despite the prison capacity being 1,100. During the German occupation, the population was subjected to various atrocities. Already on 15 September 1939, the Germans carried out the first public execution of seven Poles in Sieradz. In early November 1939, the Germans arrested 62 members of the local elite in order to terrorize the population before the Polish Independence Day (11 November), and then on 14 November they forced local Jews to dig pits for the victims, and afterwards murdered 20 hostages. Among the victims were activists, teachers, school principals, craftsmen, policemen, pre-war mayor Ignacy Mąkowski, local officials, judges, and a boy scout.

The town was subjected to severe Germanisation, and the Nazis destroyed traces of Polish culture, destroying historical records, monuments, and buildings. Street names were changed in an effort to wipe out any connection with a Polish identity. In 1941, the German gendarmerie carried out further expulsions of Poles from the present-day districts of Jeziory, Monice and Zapusta Mała, mostly due to the establishment of a military training ground, with the victims either deported to forced labour in Germany or to the Radom District in the more-eastern part of occupied Poland.

thumb|Pre-war view of the Danielewicz Palace, which was destroyed during World War II

The local prison was one of the most important German prisons in the Reichsgau Wartheland. Its prisoners, predominantly Poles and Jews, were subjected to insults, beatings, forced labour, tortures and executions. Prisoners were given very low food rations, and meals were even prepared from rotten vegetables, spoiled fish and dead dogs. Many prisoners died of exhaustion, starvation or torture. Despite such circumstances, the Polish resistance movement still operated in the area. The last executed prisoner was Antonina Chrystkowa, a female member of the Home Army resistance organization, who was beheaded with an axe on 18 January 1945. Another German prison was operated in the present-day district of Chabie; it was subordinate to the main prison in Sieradz.

Bombed by the Soviets, more than 100 residents were killed. After an assault lasting three days, the Red Army arrived on 23 January 1945. The day before the retreat of the Germans, the historic Danielewicz Palace was burned down. The town was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

Recent period

thumb|Market Square in the 1980s

In 1947, local Polish youth established a secret anti-communist resistance organization, initially called the Union of Patriotic Youth (Związek Młodzieży Patriotycznej), and in 1949 renamed to Katyń to commemorate the Katyn massacre in which the Soviets murdered nearly 22,000 Poles in 1940. Its activity extended to the nearby cities of Zduńska Wola, Warta, Łódź and even Włocławek, and included collecting weapons, secret training, intelligence, and publishing and distribution of independent Polish press and leaflets. Its leader was Zbigniew Tur, a native of pre-war eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, who as a teenager was arrested and deported to forced labour by both the Germans (twice) and the Soviets, before returning to Poland in 1946. During the court hearings, the townspeople gathered near the courthouse and demonstrated their sympathy and support for the arrested youth. The coins are part of the collection of the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum in Łódź.

thumb|upright|St. Adalbert Church

Politics

Sieradz constituency

Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Sieradz constituency

  • Joanna Lichocka, PiS
  • Marcin Przydacz, PiS
  • Paweł Rychlik, PiS
  • Piotr Polak, PiS
  • Tadeusz Woźniak, PiS
  • Marek Mauszewski, PiS
  • Cezary Tomczyk, KO
  • Agnieszka Hanajczyk, KO
  • Krzysztof Habura, KO
  • Paweł Bejda, TD
  • Jolanta Zięba-Gzik, TD
  • Paulina Matysiak, L

President of Sieradz

  • Paweł Osiewała

Tourism

thumb|City Theatre

The Rynek (town square) filled with historic architecture makes a perfect tourism place with local shops selling various products of good quality and brands. Chief cultural institutions include the City Theatre and Regional Museum with archaeological, historical, ethnographic and art collections, with two additional branches: the Sieradz Ethnographic Park and Walewski Museum in Tubądzin. The medieval churches in Sieradz carry historical significance and are well restored with preserved Baroque interior and art by 19th-century painter Wojciech Gerson. There are several memorials to victims of German occupation in World War II, and three preserved war bunkers.

The natural forests on the banks of river Warta makes an ideal place for mushroom pickers.

Sports and recreation

Sieradz has a fully equipped municipal sports centre, with three proper football pitches, running track, two sports grounds, hotel, restaurant, tennis courts, sauna, health club, games, swimming pool and well guarded river side swim area. The local football club is Warta Sieradz. It competes in the lower leagues.

Development

Sieradz dramatically developed since 2007 with new residential projects and townships. Sieradz has some attractive shopping malls, such as Galeria sieradzka, Dekada, Rondo and several open markets. Its attracts residents from nearby villages and towns as well and makes Sieradz a prime shopping destination. The Sieradz City administration successfully holds Open Hair Festival every year and the town is very much well known for this event.

Notable people

thumb|upright|[[Antoine de Paris monument]]

  • Cyprian Bazylik (–), musician, writer, printer
  • Leszek II the Black (–1288), High Duke of Poland
  • Antoni ”Antoine” Cierplikowski (1884–1976), celebrity hairdresser
  • Maksymilian Fajans (1827–1890), artist, lithographer and photographer
  • Jan Gruszczyński, a medieval Primate of Poland
  • Arek Hersh, Holocaust survivor and educator
  • Michał Kołodziejczak (born 1988), politician, founder of AGROunia
  • (1891–1942?), Yiddish actress
  • Mariusz Stępiński (born 1995), footballer
  • Beata Stoczyńska (born 1961), diplomat
  • Ary Szternfeld (1905–1980), aerospace scientist
  • Hymie Weiss, American gangster
  • Zalman Ben-Ya'akov (1897–1959), Israeli politician

Twin cities

  • Gaggenau, Germany
  • Annemasse, France
  • Yambol, Bulgaria

See also

  • Dukes of Sieradz-Łęczyca

References

  • Official Sieradz town website