Lotnisko Pobiednik 1939 / Airstrip in Pobiednik 1939

In the interwar period, in the northern part of the village of Pobiednik Wielki in today’s district of Kraków, a backup landing pad of the 2nd Aviation Regiment was built, based at Rakowice-Czyżyny airport in Kraków. From 1 to 4 September 1939, various air units of this regiment were stationed in Pobiednik – two squadrons of the Cracow III/2 Fighter Squadron (Nos 121 and 122), as well as planes of the 23rd and 26th Observation Squadron and Liaison Platoon No. 3. Fighter aircraft took off from here to fight German air bomber raids, and reconnaissance planes worked for the land units of the „Kraków” Army. The stay at the airstrip in Pobiednik, lasting only a few dozen hours, was an intensely active time for the Kraków aviation units.

Igołomia i Wawrzeńczyce – dwa kościoły przy Wielkiej Drodze / Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce – two churches by the Great Road

The parish churches in Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce were founded in the Middle Ages. Their current appearance is the result of centuries of change. Wawrzeńczyce was an ecclesial property – first of Wrocław Premonstratens, and then, until the end of the 18th century, of Kraków bishops. The Church of St. Mary Magdalene was funded by the Bishop Iwo Odrowąż. In 1393 it was visited by the royal couple Jadwiga of Poland and Władysław Jagiełło. In the 17th century the temple suffered from the Swedish Invasion, and then a fire. The church was also damaged during World War I in 1914. The current furnishing of the church was created to a large extent after World War II. Igołomia was once partly owned by the Benedictines of Tyniec, and partly belonged to the Collegiate Church of St. Florian in Kleparz in Kraków. The first mention of the parish church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary comes from the first quarter of the fourteenth century. In 1384, a brick church was erected in place of a wooden one. The history of the Igołomia church is known only from the second half of the 18th century, as it was renovated and enlarged in 1869. The destruction after World War I initiated interior renovation work, continuing until the 1920s.

/ Schyłek epoki kamienia i początki epoki brązu w okolicach Igołomi i Wawrzeńczyc The end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age in the vicinity of Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce

The borderland of the Vistula Plain and the Proszowice Plateau is part of the loess zone extending mainly to the north of the Vistula River, known for numerous discoveries of archaeological sites from the Eneolithic period and the early Bronze Age. The state of reconnaissance of settlement is far from satisfactory here. From the final Eneolithic period primarily cemeteries of the Corded Ware culture (around 2800–2300 BC) are known. Falling within this age range is probably the only burial mound in the area, in Igołomia, which yielded a niche grave of the Corded Ware culture within the eastern part of its cover. Another cemetery was investigated in Rudno Górne, where niche graves of the culture in question were found dug into the embankments of Funnel Beaker culture megalithic graves from the middle Eneolithic period. From the early Bronze Age, the richest and most cognitively significant sites of the Mierzanowice culture (around 2200–1600 BC) are concentrated on loess hills rising above the valleys of Ropotek and Rudnik. They are both cemeteries and large settlements. Particularly valuable results were obtained during research on the cemetery in Szarbia, where as many as 44 graves were found. These findings enable the reconstruction of funeral rite rules from the early Bronze Age.

Rozdzióbią nas kruki, wrony…, czyli Powstanie Styczniowe na ziemiach igołomsko-wawrzeńczyckiego powiśla / We will be pecked by ravens, crows…, or the January Uprising in the Igołomia-Wawrzeńczyce region on the Vistula River

The presented chapter describes the events that took place in the area of Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce during the January Uprising of 1863–1864. These lands, being the southernmost part of the Russian Empire, bordering the Austrian Empire, witnessed in the first year of the uprising of a series of skirmishes of varying intensity. The main part of the study focuses on the presentation of military events, including the causes and courses of two battles fought at Igołomia in March and May 1863. Much space in particular is devoted to the second battle of Igołomia, from May 4, 1863, whose significance goes far beyond the issues of local history. An equally important part of the article is an attempt to present the attitudes of the peasant population towards the insurgent events of 1863–1864. Discussion of this issue was preceded by a brief description of the socio-economic situation of the former Miechów district in the pre-uprising period, with particular emphasis on the lands of the today commune of Igołomia-Wawrzeńczyce. The paper also presents the figures of two local farmers involved in activities for insurgents, an exception in the context of the general indifference of this social layer towards the idea of an uprising.

Nadwiślański region w wschód od Krakowa na przełomie er / The Vistula River region east of Kraków at the turn of the eras

The article discusses the history of humans in the Vistula Valley east of Kraków from the late Pre-Roman to Roman period (3rd c. BC – 4th c. AD). This area, convenient for settlement, located on a well-preserved section of a loess river terrace, is among the most interesting and richest in Poland at that time. The diversity of habitats on the border of the loess terrace and floodplain ecosystems enabled diverse economic activities, both agricultural and non-agricultural, which was stimulated by easy access to raw materials. This zone is known in archaeological literature mainly from well-developed non-agricultural production (potterymaking, bronzesmithing), dated to the Roman period. It should be emphasized, however, that agriculture was the basis of the economy of the population living here. Distinguished archaeological sites include settlements in Igołomia and Zofipole, both in Kraków district. Trade contacts played an important role in the development of these communities, both in the Pre-Roman and Roman periods.

Plany i mapy historyczne rejonu Igołomi i Wawrzeńczyc / Plans and historical maps of the Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce regions

The text is an attempt to analyse archival maps of the Wawrzeńczyce and Igołomia villages in the Małopolska Province, dated from the 17th to the mid–20th century. The described area underwent many transformations during that time, changing its administrative and even state affiliation. Various forms of economic activity appeared, while industrial and religious facilities were built. Many of these processes can be seen on small-scale and medium-scale maps created since the mid-seventeenth century. Only some of the objects described in this article have survived to this day. Most of this is no longer on the minds of the current inhabitants of this area. One of the most interesting discoveries made during the analysis of archival maps is the former park foundation called Ochodza in the area of the former village of Wolica, which is still waiting for its detailed description.

Słowiańskie osadnictwo w fazie plemiennej i wczesnopaństwowej (VII/VIII–XIII wiek) / Slavic settlement in the Tribal and Early State phase (7th/8th–13th centuries)

After the Early Slavic period a number of changes took place, which was manifested, among others, in the construction of strongholds – fortified seats of local power. This stage of Slavic development, lasting approximately 200 years from the turn of the 7th and 8th century on, is called the Tribal phase. At that time, the areas of western Lesser Poland belonged to the Vistulan tribe. Their central seat was the stronghold on Wawel Hill in Kraków. At the end of the 10th century the Piasts began to play an active military and political role in the Vistula River basin. Their successful expansion gave rise to the Early State phase. After 966, as Christianity progressed, inhumation replaced cremation as the burial rite. The oldest row-arranged cemeteries were founded on the upper Vistula from the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. They were used until end of the 12th century, or longer. Two such cemeteries were examined in the study area, in Wawrzeńczyce and Stręgoborzyce. They were abandoned with the consolidation of the parish network and the establishment of church cemeteries in the 13th century. Material culture of the Tribal phase – besides native production – yielded artifacts indicating contacts with areas south of the Carpathians, with the nomadic Avars and, after their fall, with Hungarians.

Pałacu w Igołomi dzieje najnowsze / The manor house in Igołomia and its later history

Architecturally dominating Igołomia village in Kraków district on the Vistula River is a neoclassical manor house with an English-style park surrounding it, erected at the beginning of the 19th century. After several changes of ownership, in 1950 it was taken over by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences for the purposes of its Archaeological Museum. For several years, the manor house served as a base for excavation research in Igołomia and the surrounding area, including the production center of “grey ware”, wheel-made pottery of the Roman period, and a project known as the Millennium research, aimed at exploring the beginnings of the Polish state and thus celebrating its 1000-year anniversary. In 1954, the manor house came into the possession of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the PAS). After renovation in the 1960s, an Archaeological Laboratory was organised there, which became the basis for ongoing research on the prehistoric settlement of the nearby west Lesser Poland loess upland and archaeological excavations in many other, sometimes distant, areas.

Zagłada Żydów z Wawrzeńczyc w czasie II wojny światowej w świetle akt gminnych / The extermination of the Jews from Wawrzeńczyce during the Second World War in the light of community records

The chapter discusses the fate of Jews who lived in Wawrzeńczyce, east of Kraków during the Nazi occupation. It is based mostly on the documentation of the local administration. The fonds were preserved almost intact, which is uncommon for this kind of records from the occupation period. The text explains what kind of information about the situation of Jews can be found in those records, and what was deliberately omitted or conveyed through the use of euphemisms. The information from these records is supplemented by the testimony of survivors and Polish witnesses, submitted after the war. Before the war, only a few Jewish families lived there. In 1940, over 100 Jews from Kraków were relocated to Wawrzeńczyce. One characteristic of the rural area was that no ghettos were established. Therefore, Jews lived among Polish neighbours until the extermination operation of the fall of 1942. The last part of the article discusses the fate of those few Jews who sought shelter among Polish neighbours and the various reactions of Poles to Jews looking for help. The chapter is supplemented by a register of all Jews residing in Wawrzeńczyce in the autumn of 1941. In some cases, it is the last record of those who were killed in the Holocaust.

Pierwsi Słowianie nad Wisłą w rejonie Krakowa / The first Slavs on the Vistula River in the area of Kraków

The decline of antiquity, the Migration Period, was in Central Europe a time of fundamental changes, the content of which we are only gradually discovering. Stable settlement structures that existed here for centuries have mostly “disappeared” from the archaeological record. A new cultural quality has appeared: the Slavs. Eleven settlements dating back to the Early Slavic phase were discovered between Kraków-Mogiła and Wawrzeńczyce. Residents of these settlements began to arrive on the upper Vistula probably after the middle of the 5th century from eastern Europe, or more precisely from the upper Dnieper basin. In Poland, the earliest early Slavic sites, including those from the vicinity of Igołomia, are referred to as Prague culture. These small settlements consisted of a few semi-sunken dwellings, free-standing ovens and household pits. Handmade pottery has survived in their relics, and much less frequently other products, including “luxury” ones, such as combs, brooches and pendants. The population engaged mainly in agriculture, and non-agricultural production satisfied only domestic needs. Pots were made, wool was spun, fabrics were woven, wood tar was made, unsophisticated ornaments were cast, and iron was smelted from the ore, mainly for tools.