In the 10th century Sierpc was a
stronghold of early
Piast-ruled Poland. According to tradition, a church was built in 1003. In the 17th century, there was a sizeable
Scottish community in Sierpc. In 1793 the town started to fall into decline, it was annexed by
Prussia in the
Second Partition of Poland. In 1807 regained by Poles, it became part of the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw, and in 1815 it became part of
Congress Poland, later on forcibly integrated into the
Russian Empire. In 1831, after the unsuccessful Polish
November Uprising against Russia, Sierpc was destroyed during military operations and a plague, but started to recover slowly. During the
January Uprising, on February 8, 1863, the town was captured by Polish insurgents and then recaptured by the Russians. In 1867 Sierpc regained a position of a district town. Start of the time of a fast economic development. After
World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and Sierpc was reintegrated with Poland. During the
Polish–Soviet War, on August 12, 1920, the town was captured by the Soviets, who plundered it and occupied it for several days. In 1921 Sierpc's population of 6,722 included 2,861 (42.5%) Jews.
World War II During
World War II from 1939 to 1945 Sierpc was under
German occupation. It was then renamed to
Sichelberg to remove traces of Polish origin. The Germans established a prison for
Poles in the town. Dozens of local disabled people were murdered by the Germans in March 1940 in the nearby Troska forest. On April 5, 1940 the Germans carried out mass arrests of about 600 Poles in the town and the county, who were then imprisoned in two local prisons. Local priest Bronisław Kolator was among Polish priests murdered in the
Soldau concentration camp (see
Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland). About 2,000 Poles were
expelled from Sierpc in February 1940, and another 400 were expelled in December 1940. People were first deported to the
Soldau concentration camp and afterwards to the
General Government in the more eastern part of German-occupied Poland, while their houses and workshops were handed over to
German colonists in accordance to the
Lebensraum policy. As part of the
Holocaust, the Germans destroyed Sierpc's
Jewish community. On 8 Nov 1939, the Jews of the town were deported to
ghettoes from which they were eventually sent to
Nazi concentration camps. During the Holocaust, approximately five thousand Jews from Sierpc and its environs were murdered. An organization of Jewish
Holocaust survivors from Sierpc compiled a large compendium of testimony on Jewish life in Sierpc before the war, relationships between the Jewish and Polish communities in the town, and the horrors which the Jews of Sierpc suffered in the
Holocaust. ==Places of interest==