Tomaszów Lubelski

History

The town was founded at the end of the 16th century by Jan Zamoyski as Jelitowo. It is known by its current name since 1613 when it was renamed after Zamoyski's son, Tomasz. It obtained its city charter in 1621. It was administratively located in the Bełz Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of Poland. The area around the city saw serious fighting in 1914 during World War I.

On 17–26 September 1939, during the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland which started World War II, the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski was fought between Poland and Germany. The town was bombed by the Germans and eventually found itself under German occupation. The town's Jewish community, which numbered over 5,600 in 1939 at the start of the war, was persecuted by the occupiers in the Holocaust. The Nazi Germans first placed the Jews in a ghetto established in the town, then exterminated them in 1942 at Bełżec extermination camp located a few km. south of the town. The Jewish community ceased to exist.

In 1975–1998, the town was administratively located in the Zamość Voivodeship.

There is an Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in the town, built in the Russian Revival style, constructed between 1885 and 1890 using state funds allocated by the Russian government for such purposes. The church remained continuously open during World War I, the interwar period, and World War II. Pastoral activities were interrupted only by Operation Vistula and the forced resettlement of Orthodox Ukrainians from Tomaszów. Until 1957, the abandoned church was used by dairy plants and gradually fell into disrepair. That year, the Orthodox parish in Tomaszów Lubelski was reinstated, and a provisional renovation of the building was carried out. More extensive restoration work took place in the late 1980s and early 21st century.

Education

In the town there are two faculties of Catholic University of Lublin (Legal and Economic Sciences). It has two high schools (Bartosz Głowacki High School and Władysław Sikorski High School), three technical colleges, two gymnasiums and two primary schools.

Culture

International Folk Festival Roztocze is a popular annual music festival organized since 1990. Since 2008 the town council organizes reconstructions of Battle of Tomaszów.

Sports

Tomaszów is the home for the football team Tomasovia.

Media

There are two main newspapers published weekly in Tomaszów Lubelski. First of them, ReWizje Tomaszowskie, is financed by the town council. Second of them, Tygodnik Tomaszowski, belongs to a private company.

Twin towns

Tomaszów Lubelski is twinned with:

Grigiškės, Lithuania

Kivertsi, Ukraine

Zhovkva, Ukraine

Notable people

Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801–1854), Hasidic thinker

Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, (1787–1859), Hasidic thinker

Joanna Pacuła (born 1957), actress

Leon Pinsker (1821–1891), Zionist activist

Zygmunt Sochan (1909–1998), footballer and member of the Polish resistance movement in World War II

Monika Skinder (born 2001), cross-country skier

Moshe Wertman (1924–2011), Israeli politician

Marek Zub (born 1964), football manager

Wojciech Żukowski (born 1964), member of the parliament, Law and Justice