The oldest settlements can be roughly traced back to the 6th century. The oldest known mention of Sieradz comes from the
Bull of Gniezno from 1136. In the mid-13th century it was conferred with municipal rights by Duke
Casimir I of Kuyavia. It had also welcomed many settlers from
Scotland and the
Netherlands after the 13th century. During the
fragmentation of Poland, Sieradz was initially part of the
Seniorate Province, and then from 1263 it was the capital of the
Duchy of Sieradz, which in 1339 was transformed into the
Sieradz Voivodeship of Poland. Polish king
Casimir III the Great erected a castle in Sieradz. In the
Middle Ages the town was attacked by the
Mongols during all three Mongol invasions of Poland,
Bohemians and
Teutonic Knights. Sieradz was a significant
royal town of Poland. In 1445 the election of King
Casimir IV Jagiellon took place in Sieradz. Until the 16th century the town used to be an important trade centre. Merchants from
Spain and
Portugal were frequently visiting the town for trade and commerce. In the 17th century due to the
Swedish invasions, plagues, fires and floods the town lost its trading importance and fell from its prime. In the 18th century the reconstruction of town commenced. The residents during that time were only approximately 1,500. Sieradz was annexed by
Prussia in the
Second Partition of Poland in 1793. On 13 November 1806 a Polish uprising against the Prussians took place in Sieradz, and in 1807 it was included in the short-lived Polish
Duchy of Warsaw. After the duchy's dissolution, in 1815, it became part of so-called
Congress Poland within the
Russian Partition of Poland. It was the capital of a district within the
Kalisz Governorate of the
Russian Empire. 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 {{multiple image|align=left|caption_align=center|perrow=2|total_width=250 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. 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 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. == Politics ==