Piła
Piła | ||
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Website | http://www.pila.pl |
Piła (Polish: [ˈpiwa] ⓘ; German: Schneidemühl) is a city in northwestern Poland and the capital of Piła County, situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. Its population as of 2021[update] was 71,846,[1] making it the third-largest city in the voivodeship after Poznań and Kalisz and the largest city in the northern part of Greater Poland. The city is located on the Gwda river and is famous for its green areas, parks and dense forests nearby. It is an important road and railway hub, located at the intersection of two main lines: Poznań–Szczecin and Bydgoszcz–Krzyż Wielkopolski.
City name
Piła is a Polish word meaning "saw". This was a typical name denoting a village of woodcutters belonging to a local noble. The German name Schneidemühl means "sawmill".
History
In the Kingdom of Poland
Overview
Piła traces its origins to an old fishing village.
Early history
A
Documented references to Snydemole and Piła are reportedly found in parish church sources of 1449, where there is mention of a sawmill and of the name of the current
City rights
Until 1480 Piła was a town owned by the nobility, belonging to Maciej Opaliński who later presented his holdings to King
16th century
Economic circumstances or personal feuds may have been responsible for the frequent changes of ownership of the town, as Piła was 'purchased' in 1518 by Hieronymus von Bnin; the document outlining the deed and ownership during his lifetime was given to him by King Sigismund I in 1525. Following the demise of Bnin, the town became the property of the dynasty of the mighty Gorka family. This family, secretly leaning toward Protestantism and in power until the 17th century, included some of the wealthiest landowners and most influential nobles of Poland and was known to be benevolent to their town's folk.
In 1548 Piła obtained a privilege that banned any foreign
By the middle of the 16th century, many German Protestant craftsmen and traders, driven out of
17th century: Queen Constance reshaping the town
When the widowed
After one of the town's frequent fires in 1619, the queen—in a benevolent gesture and as her 'present' to the burghers of Piła—appropriated funds from the large estate to have the old burnt-out wooden Catholic Church rebuilt. Alas, given the random, close proximity of houses to one another, town fires occurred with such regularity in numerous communities during that period that in 1626 another devastating fire broke out in Piła. This time the entire town was laid to ashes, including the newly built church. Constance subsequently charged her secretary Samuel Targowski on 15 July 1626 to survey what was left of the town. His proposal for a new layout was to be drastic for Christian burghers; to the developing Jewish community it was most consequential and of particular detriment. Constance also decided on a distinct segregation of Jews and Christians. The Jewish community was to resettle in a ghetto, what was to become a virtual town within a town. The new site, from thereon often referred to as Judenstadt, the Jews' town. To demarcate the newly created ghetto, the decree called for a sizable trench to be dug to surround the Jewish quarters where feasible; otherwise a tall wooden fence had to serve to close in the area completely.
A new church arose in 1628. Unlike most other buildings in town, the choir room section of this edifice was to remain intact in its original form until 1945. New houses were constructed of brick and stone and the town was reconstructed in plain
In the Kingdom of Prussia and the Duchy of Warsaw
With the signing of the definitive treaty to divide Poland between
In the year 1781, another huge fire occurred, which devastated half the town. Although Prussian authorities had brought in chimney sweeps and regulations that spelled out fire emergency tasks, hardly anyone in the town was prepared for a major conflagration. 44 houses, 37 stables and 17 barns burned down.
In 1793 Piła was recaptured for a short period by a Polish army led by Colonel Wyganowski. Following Prussia's defeat in the
19th century: industrialization and railway hub
After the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Prussia regained the town once again. Under the Prussian administrative reforms of 1816–18, the town became part of the Kolmar District within the Bromberg Region of the Grand Duchy of Posen. On 1 January 1818 Kreis Kolmar was established, with its seat in Piła / Schneidemühl, which in 1821 was moved to Chodzież. One of the main escape routes for insurgents of the unsuccessful Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through the city.[7]
The Polish language was restricted from offices and education and the city saw a significant influx of German settlers. By 1834 Schneidemühl had barely recovered from the worst outbreak of cholera of 1831, an epidemic that affected the town's burghers to such an extent that a special Protestant cholera cemetery had to be laid out in the town's suburb Berliner Vorstadt. In the summer of 1834 the city was again struck by a fire that destroyed a large part of the city centre and the city archives. The city was rebuilt shortly afterwards.
In 1851 the city was connected to Berlin and Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) by the Prussian Eastern Railway. An architectural artifact which remains from the railway development period is a historical roundhouse.
The Germanisation policy of the Prussian and Imperial German government replaced its Polish identity with a German one. By the end of the 19th century the city had become one of the most important railway centers of the region and one of the biggest towns in the Province of Posen. It was turned into a Prussian military garrison town. Schneidemühl was revisited by a catastrophe, known as the Brunnenunglück, or the 'calamity of the well' that made national headlines. The drilling of an artesian well in August 1892 went horribly wrong and led to unexpected widespread flooding of many of the streets laid out in 1834, causing numerous houses to simply collapse and leaving more than eighty families without shelter. The worst was that this disaster came only a few years on the heels of unexpected flooding caused by the spring thaw of March 1888 that had turned the Küddow into a raging river, when many people were forced to use rowboats to navigate the streets.
First World War and Imperial German military aviation technology
On 1 April 1914 Schneidemühl was disentangled from the
During the First World War, the Germans operated a prisoner-of-war camp in the city, initially taking mainly Russian POWs (including Poles and Latvians conscripted into the Russian Army) but later including prisoners from most Allied nations including Britain and Australia. A telling account of life in the town during that period survives in the form of the diary of Piete Kuhr, then a young girl whose grandmother worked at the Red Cross canteen at the railway station.
As a provincial capital within the Weimar Republic
After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence, and the
On 21 July 1922 Schneidemühl became the administrative centre of the new
In 1930 Schneidemühl replaced Tütz (
Nazi rule and Second World War
With the onset of the Nazi period and the beginning of the Gestapo's harassment of political and racial undesirables, the climate for Schneidemühl's shrinking Jewish community (which had reached over 1,000 members during the mid-19th century) changed irreversibly — institutionalized antisemitism had arrived in Schneidemühl.[citation needed]
In March and September 1938, a Verwaltungsgliederung, or administrative reform, merged the three territorially unconnected parts of the Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia province into the respective neighbouring Prussian provinces of
During the pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 the freestanding structure of Schneidemühl's 100-year-old synagogue became a prime target for the Nazis who set fire to it. In 1939, in the city and the region, the Germans carried out mass arrests of Polish activists,[9] who then were imprisoned in a temporary camp in the city before deportation to Nazi concentration camps, some were even tortured.[10] In October 1939, a German camp for Sinti and Romani people was established.[11] The city's 300-year-old Jewish community was destroyed when on 21 March 1940, on the order of Gauleiter Schwede-Coburg, the last remaining Jews, together with more than 500 Jews of the surrounding area within an 80 km (50 mi) radius, were arrested and held prisoner in various locations in the city. A large number of them were subsequently taken to the forced labour camp Radinkendorf and the Glowno prisoner camp outside of Poznań and held there in detention under inhuman conditions. Over the following two years they were taken to various labour camps, hospices, hospitals in Pomerania, Bielefeld and Berlin. Those who had not committed suicide or had perished during that period were deported to concentration camps, the last in 1943.[12] During World War II a camp for civil prisoners-of-war named "Albatros" was established. Poles expelled from Gmina Dziemiany in Gdańsk Pomerania were used as forced labour in the local aviation industry.[13] Also seven forced labour subcamps of the Stalag II-B prisoner-of-war camp[14] and a forced labour camp, which was subordinate to the local prison, were operated in the city.[15] Several British POWs escaped, and then the Polish resistance facilitated their further escape through the port of Gdynia by sea to Sweden.[16] The local Home Army also maintained contact with Polish POWs held in the Oflag II-C camp.[17]
The city became part of the
75% of the city was destroyed and almost 90% of the historic city centre was in ruins.Post-war Poland
As a result of the border changes agreed at the
In 1972 the
In August 1980, employees of local factories joined the nationwide anti-communist strikes,[19] which led to the foundation of the Solidarity organization, which played a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland.
In 1975 Piła became the capital of the newly established Piła Voivodeship (province), which started a period of fast development of industry in the area as one of the most important cities of the region. It remained a voivodeship capital until the administrative reform of 1999. It is known for its green areas and parks, as well as for its speedway club Polonia Piła who race at the Stadion Polonii Piła.
Historical population
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Geography
Climate
Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The
Climate data for Piła (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1970–present) | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 13.9 (57.0) |
18.3 (64.9) |
22.3 (72.1) |
29.9 (85.8) |
31.6 (88.9) |
37.4 (99.3) |
37.4 (99.3) |
37.2 (99.0) |
34.7 (94.5) |
25.2 (77.4) |
17.7 (63.9) |
14.1 (57.4) |
37.4 (99.3) |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 1.8 (35.2) |
3.4 (38.1) |
7.8 (46.0) |
14.6 (58.3) |
19.4 (66.9) |
22.6 (72.7) |
24.8 (76.6) |
24.4 (75.9) |
19.0 (66.2) |
12.9 (55.2) |
6.5 (43.7) |
2.9 (37.2) |
13.3 (55.9) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | −0.8 (30.6) |
0.2 (32.4) |
3.2 (37.8) |
8.7 (47.7) |
13.5 (56.3) |
16.8 (62.2) |
19.0 (66.2) |
18.4 (65.1) |
13.6 (56.5) |
8.5 (47.3) |
3.9 (39.0) |
0.6 (33.1) |
8.8 (47.8) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | −3.5 (25.7) |
−2.9 (26.8) |
−0.9 (30.4) |
2.9 (37.2) |
7.4 (45.3) |
10.9 (51.6) |
13.2 (55.8) |
12.7 (54.9) |
8.7 (47.7) |
4.7 (40.5) |
1.3 (34.3) |
−1.9 (28.6) |
4.4 (39.9) |
Record low °C (°F) | −30.0 (−22.0) |
−24.9 (−12.8) |
−20.3 (−4.5) |
−9.8 (14.4) |
−5.3 (22.5) |
−1.6 (29.1) |
1.7 (35.1) |
1.2 (34.2) |
−4.0 (24.8) |
−9.6 (14.7) |
−13.1 (8.4) |
−20.4 (−4.7) |
−30.0 (−22.0) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 39.4 (1.55) |
29.0 (1.14) |
39.5 (1.56) |
27.7 (1.09) |
57.1 (2.25) |
56.0 (2.20) |
72.6 (2.86) |
65.5 (2.58) |
49.2 (1.94) |
38.5 (1.52) |
35.1 (1.38) |
40.4 (1.59) |
549.9 (21.65) |
Average extreme snow depth cm (inches) | 4.7 (1.9) |
4.8 (1.9) |
2.9 (1.1) |
0.7 (0.3) |
0.0 (0.0) |
0.0 (0.0) |
0.0 (0.0) |
0.0 (0.0) |
0.0 (0.0) |
0.1 (0.0) |
1.4 (0.6) |
4.1 (1.6) |
4.8 (1.9) |
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) | 19.00 | 15.17 | 14.50 | 11.67 | 13.47 | 13.50 | 13.87 | 13.57 | 12.77 | 15.00 | 17.20 | 18.93 | 178.63 |
Average snowy days (≥ 0 cm) | 13.1 | 11.7 | 5.0 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.8 | 7.5 | 40.5 |
Average relative humidity (%)
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88.8 | 84.7 | 77.9 | 68.4 | 68.2 | 69.0 | 70.1 | 72.5 | 79.5 | 84.9 | 90.9 | 90.7 | 78.8 |
Mean monthly sunshine hours | 45.1 | 68.8 | 127.7 | 205.0 | 255.7 | 252.4 | 259.2 | 240.2 | 164.6 | 108.0 | 46.0 | 32.7 | 1,805.4 |
Source 1: Institute of Meteorology and Water Management[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] | |||||||||||||
Source 2: Meteomodel.pl (records, relative humidity 1991–2020)[28][29][30] |
Economy
Major corporations
- Signify formerly known as 'Philips Lighting Poland", Piła
- Quad/Graphics Europe, Piła (in the past known as Winkowski sp. z o.o.)
Attractions
- Museum of Stanisław Staszic in his former house
- 19th-century building of the former arsenal
- Neo-Gothicstyle
- Holy Family's church, built in Prałatura Pilska
- St. Anthony's Church with the biggest wooden figure of Jesus in Europe, seven metres (23 feet) tall (church built in 1930)
- Two war cemeteries (Allied POWs from World War I and Polish and Soviet soldiers killed during the battle of the Pomeranian Wall during World War II); cemeteries are in uptown Piła, in Leszków.
- Modern two-level shopping center "Atrium Kasztanowa"
- Modern shopping center "Vivo!" (Piła), located next to railway station "Dworzec PKP - Piła Główna (en. Station PKP - Piła Main)
- "Aqua Park" - water park
- "Park na Wyspie" - big park located on island (wyspa) with open-air gym, playground, square and fountains
Politics
Piła constituency
Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Piła constituency:
- Adam Szejnfeld – Civic Platform
- Jakub Rutnicki – Civic Platform
- Stanisław Chmielewski – Civic Platform
- Piotr Waśko – Civic Platform
- Law and Justice
- Law and Justice
- Romuald Ajchler – Left and Democrats
- Stanisław Stec – Left and Democrats
- Stanisław Kalemba – Polish People's Party
Members of
Municipal politics
- The president of the Town of Piła: Piotr Głowski
- Vicepresidents: Krzysztof Szewc, Beata Dudzińska
- Town council chairman: Rafał Zdzierela
- Town council vicechairmans: Paweł Jarczak, Janusz Kubiak
Sports
- Polonia Piła – speedway team, 1999 Polish Champions
- TAURON Liga(Polish top division): Polish champions in 1998–1999, 1999–2000, 2000–2001, 2001–2002 seasons, 2nd place in 2005–2006, 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 seasons and 3rd place in 2004–2005 and 2008–2009 seasons.
- Joker Piła – men's volleyball team playing in the lower leagues, which also played in the top division in the past (most recently in season 2005–06)
- Basket Piła – men's basketball team playing in the lower leagues
- Gwda Piła – athletics club[31]
- Gwardia Piła – athletics club
Notable people
- Chief of Staff, Bundeswehr
- Dirk Galuba (born 1940), German actor
- Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884–1945), German politician and anti-Nazi
- Fritz Goerdeler (1886–1945), German jurist and resistance fighter
- Andrzej Gronowicz (born 1951), Polish athlete
- Jerzy Stanisław Janicki (born 1956), physicist
- Maximilian Kaller (1880–1947), first Roman Catholic church administrator of the town
- Hein Kötz (born 1935), German jurist
- Erwin Kramer (1902–1979), German politician
- Ben Mendelsohn (born 1969), Australian actor whose ancestors lived in Piła
- Jo Mihaly (born Elfriede Alice Kuhr) (1902–1989), German dancer and writer
- Daria Pająk (born 1993), Polish bowling player
- Karl Retzlaw (1896–1979), German politician
- Eberhard Schenk (born 1929), German athlete
- Bernard Schultze (1915–2005), German painter
- Kasia Smutniak (born 1979), Polish actress
- Polish Enlightenment.
- Wolfgang Thonke (1938–2019), East German general
- Johanna Töpfer (1929–1990), German politician
International relations
This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2016) |
Twin towns — Sister cities
Piła is
Former twin towns
On 1 March 2022, Piła suspended its partnership with the Russian city of Kronsdadt as a reaction to the
References
- ^ a b "Local Data Bank". Statistics Poland. Retrieved 14 August 2022. Data for territorial unit 3019011.
- ^ "Piła Oficjalny Serwis Miasta-Historia". Archived from the original on 2011-09-06. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
- ^ Atlas historyczny Polski. Wielkopolska w drugiej połowie XVI wieku. Część I. Mapy, plany (in Polish). Warszawa: Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. 2017. p. 1a.
- ^ a b Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom VIII (in Polish). Warszawa. 1887. p. 152.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom VIII, pp. 152–153 (in Polish)
- ^ Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom VIII, p. 153
- ^ Umiński, Janusz (1998). "Losy internowanych na Pomorzu żołnierzy powstania listopadowego". Jantarowe Szlaki (in Polish). Vol. 4, no. 250. p. 16.
- ^ "Piła (miasto powiatowe)". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (in Polish). Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. p. 80.
- ^ Cygański, Mirosław (1984). "Hitlerowskie prześladowania przywódców i aktywu Związków Polaków w Niemczech w latach 1939-1945". Przegląd Zachodni (in Polish) (4): 49, 60.
- ^ "Lager für Sinti und Roma Schneidemühl". Bundesarchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ Cullman, Peter Simonstein, 'History of the Jewish Community of Schneidemühl: 1641 to the Holocaust,' Bergenfield, NJ : Avotaynu, 2006; DS135.P62P4728 2006.
- ISBN 978-83-8098-174-4.
- ^ "Les Kommandos". Stalag IIB Hammerstein, Czarne en Pologne (in French). Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ "Außenkommando des Haftanstalt Schneidemühl in Schneidemühl bei der "Maschinenfabrik HA Schneidemühl"". Bundesarchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ISSN 0137-5377.
- ISBN 978-83-8229-411-8.
- ^ Beevor, A (2002) Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Penguin Books P91
- ISSN 1641-9561.
- ^ "Średnia dobowa temperatura powietrza". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Średnia minimalna temperatura powietrza". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Średnia maksymalna temperatura powietrza". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Miesięczna suma opadu". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 9 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Liczba dni z opadem >= 0,1 mm". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Średnia grubość pokrywy śnieżnej". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Liczba dni z pokrywą śnieżna > 0 cm". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 21 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Średnia suma usłonecznienia (h)". Normy klimatyczne 1991-2020 (in Polish). Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Piła Absolutna temperatura maksymalna" (in Polish). Meteomodel.pl. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Piła Absolutna temperatura minimalna" (in Polish). Meteomodel.pl. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Piła Średnia wilgotność" (in Polish). Meteomodel.pl. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "PLKS Gwda Piła" (in Polish). Retrieved 11 February 2023.
- ^ "Relazioni internazionali".
- ^ "Miasto Piła zawiesza współpracę z rosyjskimi miastami partnerskimi. Co na to poseł Marcin Porzucek?" (in Polish). March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2022.