Piaski

Infobox Settlement
name = Piaski
image_shield = POL Piaski COA.svg
pushpin_

pushpin_label_position = bottom
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = POL
subdivision_type1 = Voivodeship
subdivision_name1 = Lublin
subdivision_type2 = County
subdivision_name2 = Świdnik
subdivision_type3 = Gmina
subdivision_name3 = Piaski
leader_title = Mayor
leader_name = Ryszard Siczek
area_total_km2 = 8.43
population_as_of = 2006
population_total = 2626
population_density_km2 = auto
timezone = CET
utc_offset = +1
timezone_DST = CEST
utc_offset_DST = +2
latd = 51 | latm = 8 | lats = 3 | latNS = N | longd = 22 | longm = 50 | longs = 41 | longEW = E
postal_code_type = Postal code
postal_code = 21-050
blank_name = Car plates
blank_info = LSW
website = http://www.piaski.pl

Piaski [IPA-pl|'|p|j|a|s|k|i] , formerly Piaski Luterskie, is a town in Poland at the Giełczew river. The town's population is about 2,660 (2004). Administratively it belongs to Powiat of Świdnik of the Lublin Voivodeship. It lies 16 km Southeast of Świdnik.

History

The first documentary mention of the village Pogorzały Staw located near the site of the current town comes from the year 1401. The first specific mention of Piaski occurs in the chronicle of Jan Długosz from 1470 which calls the town "Pyassek alias Gyelczew" (alias here meaning formerly), where Giełczew is the name of another local village. Based on this evidence, it is thought that the town Piaski came into existence some time in the first half of the 15th century on lands formerly belonging to those two villages. In the 16th and 17th centuries a significant part of the town's population was Protestant, hence it became known as Piaski Luterskie (Lutheran).

Later the town's Jewish community grew to eventually constitute two thirds of the total inhabitants, making it a shtetl. in 1795, in the course of the Third Partition of Poland, the town became part of Habsburg Austria. In 1809 it briefly passed to the Duchy of Warsaw, before becoming part of Congress Poland under Russian rule from 1815 onward. In 1869 Piaski lost its municipal rights. Since 1918 it has belonged to reconstituted Poland.

In 1921 Piaski had 2,674 Jews among its 3,974 inhabitants. During the German occupation in the course of World War II it was part of the General Government. At the beginning of this period, 4,165 Jews lived in Piaski. In 1940 the Nazi German occupiers established a ghetto, to imprison not only its Jewish inhabitants, but also several thousand Jews transported from the Lublin Ghetto as well as from the German Reich. In 1942 the ghetto was liquidated and its inmates perished in the Belzec extermination camp.

In 1993 Piaski recovered its municipal rights, officially becoming a town again after a break of over a hundred years.

Facilities

Near Piaski there is a TV transmission site, with a 342 metre high guyed mast, one of the tallest in Poland.

Famous people from Piaski

* Antoni Patek, insurgent in the November Uprising, founder of Patek Philippe Company

External links

* [http://www.piaski.pl/ Official town webpage]
* [http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol7_00384.html Information about Piaski at www.jewishgen.org]