The first reference to Ropczyce comes from a document of 1252, which confirmed the donation of the land by the brothers Klemens and Marek Gryf to a
Cistercian Abbey in
Szczyrzyc near
Limanowa. Around this time Ropczyce was damaged by a
Tatar raid. Ropczyce was severely damaged during a
Tatar raid in 1504. To help the town and citizens recover from this tragedy, king
Alexander Jagiellon gave all the citizens a 10-year
tax exemption from 1504 to 1514 In the 15th and 16th centuries Ropczyce became a major centre in the
manufacture of
canvas goods.
17th century to 18th century Holy Name of Mary church Ropczyce's "
Golden Age" was but a distant memory in the 17th and 18th centuries – these were times of wars and invasions. The town went into decline and life got a lot harder for the townspeople. In 1605 over half of the town was destroyed in a great fire. Fifty years later, Ropczyce was hit by
The Plague. Ropczyce was plundered by
Swedish troops in 1655 and then devastated in 1657 by the army of
George II Rákóczi, the Prince of
Transylvania. In 1669 the Parish Church was destroyed by fire. On 14 July 1772, following the
First Partition of Poland, Ropczyce found itself in the
Austrian province of
Galicia, part of the
Habsburg monarchy in the Austro-Hungarian
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Ropczyce was first located in the
administrative area (or
cyrkuł) of
Pilzno and in the
Sandomierz district. In 1775 the
administrative areas in Galicia were reorganised and Ropczyce was reallocated to the
Tarnów cyrkuł. Fortunately for Ropczyce, as a 'Royal town', it was given virtually autonomous administration. The position of 'town
advocate' was replaced by the new position of mayor. However, during these times the whole region was systematically
Germanised, from the system of
administration, local
by-laws, education to everyday life.
Jewish history The earliest information about Jews settling in Ropczyce dates back to 1564. It was noted then that four Jewish families, i.e. about 30 people, lived on the farm of the Gryf family. At the end of the 18th century, Ropczyce became a significant center of
Chassidism after the famous
Naftali Zvi Horowitz (1760–1827) settled in the town
(He was born on 22 May 1760, the day that the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidism, died). He was the son of Menachem Mendel Rubin, the
rabbi of Lesko and a follower of two great
tzadikkim:
Elimelech of Leżajsk (
Lizhensk) and
Menachem Mendel of Rymanów.
Tzadik Naftali Zvi Horowitz was the author of, among others,
Zera Kodesh (a collection of comments to the
Torah, published in 1868), and
Ohel Naftali (a collection of sayings, published in 1911). At the end of his life, he left Ropczyce and settled in
Łańcut where he died on 8 May 1827
(corresponding to 11 Iyar 5587) and where he was buried. Asher of Ropczyce was the next
tzadik of the town. The sons of Naftali Zvi Horowitz also became
tzadikkim: Eliezer Horowitz – in Dzików near
Tarnobrzeg, and Jakub Horowitz (named
The Small Baal Shem Tov, usually translated into English as Baal Shem Tov|, due to numerous miracles that he performed) – in
Kolbuszowa and later in
Mielec. Up until World War II Ropczyce was a
shtetl () with a significant Jewish population. There is a
Ropshitz Hasidic dynasty. The Germans occupied Ropczyce in September 1939 and immediately began brutalizing the Jewish population, at that time around 1000 people. They burned the synagogue and shortly began to conscript Jews for
forced labor. Many Jewish refugees from nearby villages came to Ropczyce during the next two years. In May, 1942, 75 men were deported to a labor camp in Pustków. In June, there was another roundup where 23 people were murdered on the spot and others were sent to Pustków. Later in the month, the remaining Jews were forced into an overcrowded
ghetto. In July, the Germans shot 28 people, children and the elderly, and took the rest of the Jewish population to Sędziszów Małopolski. Several hundred were shot there and the rest sent by train to Belzec where they were immediately gassed. The number of survivors among the Ropczyce Jews is unknown. ==Transport==