The area of today's Stalowa Wola belongs to historic Polish province of
Lesser Poland. In the
Kingdom of Poland, it was located in the south-eastern corner of the
Sandomierz Voivodeship, near the border with
Red Ruthenia. The city of Stalowa Wola was built on the site where the village of Pławo once stood, between the ancient towns of
Nisko and
Rozwadów. The first mentions of Pławo come from the first half of the 15th century. At the nearby village of Przyszów, there was a hunting lodge of King
Władysław Jagiełło, built before 1358. In the late 15th century, Pławo was a royal village. In 1656, the area of Pławo was the site of a battle between Polish and Swedish armies. Here, in the confluence of the San and
Vistula, Swedish troops of King
Charles Gustav were surrounded by
Stefan Czarniecki (see
Swedish invasion of Poland). Until the
Partitions of Poland, Pławo belonged to
Sandomierz Voivodeship. From 1772 to 1918, it was part of the Austrian province of
Galicia and remained an insignificant, privately owned village. In early 1937, the government of the
Second Polish Republic accepted the project of the
Central Industrial Area, which included the construction of a
brand new steel mill, together with a settlement for the workers. Before the outbreak of
World War II, some departments of the mill were operational and several blocks of flats were built. Construction of the
Southern Works, as the mill was then called, was started in dense pine forests around Pławo in March 1937. Among other things, the plant manufactured artillery cannons. Following the joint German-Soviet
invasion of Poland, which started
World War II in September 1939, the city was
occupied by Nazi Germany. During the war, Stalowa Wola was one of the centres of the
Home Army. The settlement was captured by the
Red Army in August 1944, and on April 1, 1945, Stalowa Wola received its town charter. In 1948, the mill was renamed as
Huta Stalowa Wola and in 1953, a separate urban county of Stalowa Wola was created. In 1973, the town of Rozwadów was annexed, followed in 1977 by the village of Charzewice. At its peak in the 1970s, the mill employed 35,000 people, with branches scattered across southern Poland, from
Radomsko to
Strzyżów. Apart from the mill, Stalowa Wola has a large power plant, opened Spring 1939. In 1988, the city was one of the centres of workers' protests (see
1988 Polish strikes). Currently, Stalowa Wola is the third-largest city of the voivodeship, with a population of 60,000. ,
patron saint of Poland, in Stalowa Wola
Jews in Rozwadów The
Rozwadów suburb of Stalowa Wola was a thriving
Jewish
shtetl prior to
World War II and was closely associated with
Tarnobrzeg and other nearby shtetls including
Ulanów,
Mielec,
Dzików etc. These communities, infused with vitality before 1939, were utterly destroyed during
the Holocaust after having been affected by World War I only some 20 years earlier.
Jews in Rozwadów were a religiously observant community, i.e. traditional or
Orthodox in practice. The leading
rabbi of Rozwadów, similar to other rabbis of the region, followed
Hasidism practice and was of the Horowitz family. In New York, a Rozwadower Rebbe established a small synagogue on the
Upper West Side, which continued for many decades after the war. There is a link to a
yizkor book about Rozwadów which gives further notes on the Jewish life there. The Rozwadów
synagogue was, until
World War II, located on Attorney Street on the
Lower East Side of
Manhattan. During
World War II,
Dr. Eugene Lazowski, a military doctor of the
Polish underground Home Army,
Armia Krajowa, created a fake epidemic of dangerous
infectious disease,
Epidemic Typhus in the town of
Rozwadów (now a district of Stalowa Wola) and the surrounding villages and towns. He saved an estimated 8,000
Polish Jews from certain death in
Nazi concentration camps during the
Holocaust, performing his services in utmost secrecy under the threat of capital punishment. Following
the Holocaust, the remaining Jews were motivated to seek a new start in
Palestine, thanks to
Berihah's efforts. A community of former Rozwadów citizens had been established in
New York City and continued its affinity long after World War II. Many former Rozwadów citizens of Jewish backgrounds moved to the fledgeling State of
Israel. ==Heritage sites==