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21st Army Group

The 21st Army Group was a British headquarters formation formed during the Second World War. It controlled two field armies and other supporting units, consisting primarily of the British Second Army and the First Canadian Army. Established in London during July 1943, under the command of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), it was assigned to Operation Overlord, the Western Allied invasion of Europe, and was an important Allied force in the European Theatre. At various times during its existence, the 21st Army Group had additional British, Canadian, American, and Polish field armies or corps attached to it. The 21st Army Group operated in Northern France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany from June 1944 until August 1945, when it was renamed the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR).

Normandy
Commanded by General (later Field Marshal) Sir Bernard Montgomery, 21st Army Group initially controlled all ground forces in Operation Overlord (the United States First Army and British Second Army). When sufficient American forces had landed, their own 12th Army Group was activated, under General Omar Bradley, and the 21st Army Group was left with the British Second Army and the newly activated First Canadian Army which, despite its title, also contained many British and Polish troops.

Normandy was a battle of attrition for the British and Canadian troops, drawing in most of the available German reinforcements, especially armoured divisions, around Caen at the eastern end of the lodgement. These operations left the Germans unable to prevent the American breakout at the western end of the Normandy beachhead in early August 1944. Following the German attack towards Mortain, the American breakout and an advance by the 21st Army Group the German armed forces in Normandy were nearly enveloped in the Falaise pocket, and subsequently routed, retreating towards the Low Countries.

Advance into the Low Countries
After the successful landings in the south of France by the US 6th Army Group, the 21st Army Group formed the left flank of the three Allied army groups arrayed against German forces in the West. It was therefore responsible for securing the ports upon which Allied supply depended, and also with overrunning German V-1 and V-2 launching sites along the coasts of western France and Belgium.

By 29 August, the Germans had largely withdrawn across the Seine River without their heavy equipment. The campaign through Northern France and Belgium was largely a pursuit, with the ports - formally designated "Fortress Towns" by the Germans - offering only limited opposition to the First Canadian Army. The advance was so rapid, 250 miles in four days, that Antwerp, Belgium, was captured undefended on 4 September 1944 and the port facilities were cleared of the German defenders in the following days.

On 1 September 1944, the 21st Army Group was relieved of operational control of the American armies, and those armies formed the 12th Army Group.

By mid-September, elements of 21st Army Group had reached the Dutch border, but were halted due to lack of supplies, and by flooding caused by the widespread German demolition of Dutch dikes. German control of some of the channel ports and the approaches to Antwerp, and previous Allied bombing of the French and Belgian railways, resulted in a long supply line from Normandy served mainly by trucks.

Operation Market Garden
After the break-out from Normandy, there were high hopes that the war could be ended in 1944. In order to do so, the last great natural defensive barrier of Germany in the west, the Rhine River had to be crossed. Operation Market Garden was orchestrated to attempt just this. It was staged in the Netherlands with the airborne troops of the American 82nd and 101st and one British 1st airborne divisions and the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade (attached to the 1st Airborne Division) being dropped to capture bridges over the lower Rhine before they could be blown by the Germans. The airborne formations were then to be relieved by armoured forces of the Guards Armoured Division advancing rapidly northwards through Eindhoven and Nijmegen to Arnhem, opening the north German plains, and the industrial Ruhr Valley, to the Allies.

However, the British armoured forces had only one main highway to operate on, and crucial information about the German forces in the operational area was either missing or ignored. The scratch forces remaining after the retreat from France were much stronger than expected, thus giving the armoured units of the XXX Corps a much tougher fight than had been anticipated, slowing the advance. The 1st British Airborne Division in Arnhem was practically destroyed during the battle.

The advance stopped south of the Lower Rhine, resulting in a narrow salient that ran from the north of Belgium across the south-east of the Netherlands and was vulnerable to attack. German assaults in this salient, particularly north of Nijmegen were repelled.

The thin salient was then expanded Eastwards with Operation Aintree which saw bitter fighting around the town of Overloon. To the West Operation Pheasant was conducted which resulted in the liberation of the cities of Tilburg and 's-Hertogenbosch broadening the front line.

Battle of the Scheldt
Since the approaches to the port of Antwerp had not been cleared when the city was captured it had allowed the German army time to reorganise and dig in along the approaches making the port completely unusable. Thus an operation was needed to clear the approaches and thereby ease the supply problem. The island of Walcheren was strongly held by German forces and commanded the estuary of the Scheldt which flows through Antwerp. Operations by II Canadian Corps cleared the approaches to Antwerp both north and south of the water during the Battle of the Scheldt. Walcheren itself was captured in late 1944 by the last major amphibious assault in Europe in the Second World War. A combination of British and Canadian forces and Royal Marines undertook the operation.

Battle of the Bulge
After the capture of Walcheren came the last great German offensive of the war in the west. In a repeat of their 1940 attack, German formations smashed through weak Allied lines in the Ardennes in Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge presented a command problem to General Eisenhower. It had sliced through US lines, leaving some American formations north and south of the new German salient. However, the headquarters of the US 12th Army Group lay to the south, and so Eisenhower decided to place American forces north of the "Bulge" salient under 21st Army Group. They, with the US Third Army under General George S. Patton, reduced the salient.

After the battle, control of the First US Army which had been placed under Field Marshal Montgomery's temporary command was returned to Bradley's 12th Army Group. The US Ninth Army remained under Montgomery longer, before being returned to American command in Germany.

Battle for the Roer Triangle
Prior to the Rhineland Campaign the enemy had to be cleared from the Roer Triangle during Operation Blackcock. This large methodical mopping up operation took place between 14 and 27 January 1945. It was not planned to make any deep thrust into the enemy defences or capture large numbers of prisoners. It proceeded from stage to stage almost entirely as planned and was completed with minimal casualties.

Rhineland Campaign
Allied forces closed up to the Rhine by March 1945. 21st Army Group at this time comprised the British Second Army under General Miles Dempsey, the First Canadian Army under General Harry Crerar and the US Ninth Army, under General William Simpson.

The First Canadian Army executed Operation Veritable in difficult conditions from Nijmegen eastwards through the Reichswald Forest then southwards. This was to have been the northern part of a pincer movement with the US Ninth Army moving northwards towards Düsseldorf and Krefeld (Operation Grenade), to clear the west bank of the Rhine north of Cologne. However the Americans were delayed by two weeks when the Germans destroyed the Roer dams and flooded the American route of advance. As a result, the Canadians engaged and mauled the German reserves intended to defend the Cologne Plain.

In Operation Plunder, starting on 13 March 1945, the British Second Army and the US Ninth Army crossed the Rhine at various places north of the Ruhr and German resistance in the west quickly crumbled. The First Canadian Army wheeled left and liberated the northern part of the Netherlands and captured adjoining areas of Germany, the British Second Army occupied much of north-west Germany and the US Ninth Army formed the northern arm of the envelopment of German forces in the Ruhr Pocket and on 4 April reverted to Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group.

On 4 May 1945, Field Marshal Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, in north west Germany and Denmark.

British Army of the Rhine
After the German surrender, 21st Army Group was converted into the headquarters for the British occupation zone in Germany. It was renamed the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) on 25 August 1945 and eventually formed the nucleus of the British forces stationed in Germany throughout the Cold War.

Order of battle
The main constituent formations of 21st Army Group were the First Canadian Army and the British Second Army. In practice, neither of the two armies were homogeneously British or Canadian. Also included was the Polish I Corps, from Normandy onwards and small Dutch, Belgian, and Czechoslovak units; units of the US Army were attached from time to time.
 * 21st army group badge large.svg 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery)
 * 2nd british army badge large.png British Second Army (Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey)
 * VIII corps (2).svg VIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O'Connor)
 * Guards armoured.svg Guards Armoured Division
 * British 3rd Infantry Division2.svg 3rd Infantry Division
 * 5 inf div -vector.svg 5th Infantry Division (arrived from Italy in March 1945)
 * 15 inf div.jpg 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division
 * XII corps.svg XII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Neil Ritchie)
 * 11th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) Insignia.svg 11th Armoured Division
 * 51 inf div -vector.svg 51st (Highland) Infantry Division
 * 53 inf div -vector.svg 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division
 * XXX Corps 1944-1945 shoulder flash.jpg XXX Corps (Lieutenant-General Gerard Bucknall (June-August 1944); Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks (from August 1944)
 * 7th armd div (3).svg 7th Armoured Division
 * 43 inf div -vector.svg 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division
 * 52 inf div -vector.svg 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division
 * First Canadian Army formation patch.svg First Canadian Army (Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar)
 * II Canadian Corps formation patch.png II Canadian Corps (Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds)
 * 2nd Canadian Division formation patch.svg 2nd Canadian Division
 * 3rd Canadian Infantry Division Patch (Modern Correct Pantone).svg 3rd Canadian Division
 * 4 Canadian Armoured Division patch.svg 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division
 * 波蘭第一裝甲師的標誌.png 1st Armoured Division (Poland)
 * I Canadian Corps formation patch.png I Canadian Corps (Lieutenant-General Charles Foulkes) (arrived from Italy in March 1945)
 * 1 Canadian Infantry Division patch.svg 1st Canadian Division
 * 5 Canadian Armoured Division patch.png 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division
 * 49th Infantry Division 3rd pattern.svg 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division (assigned to I Canadian Corps in March 1945)
 * I Corps.svg I Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir John Crocker) (Command of LOS units and formations 1945)
 * 1) Returned to UK or disbanded during the campaign
 * 59 inf div -vector.svg 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division (disbanded in August 1944)
 * 50 inf div -vector.svg 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division (returned to England in November 1944 to become a training division)

Attached US units
21st Army Group had American units attached at various times:
 * 1) The US First Army formed part of the 21st Army Group during the Battle of Normandy in June and July 1944
 * 2) During Operation Market Garden, two US airborne divisions (the 101st and 82nd), were deployed as part of the First Allied Airborne Army from September to December 1944.
 * 3) During Operation Pheasant, the British I Corps was reinforced by the US 104th Infantry Division.
 * 4) During Operation Clipper, the US 84th Infantry Division was temporarily attached to the British XXX Corps
 * 5) During the Battle of the Bulge, the US First and Ninth Armies on the north face of the bulge came under the control of the 21st Army Group.
 * 6) The US Ninth Army remained part of 21st Army Group during the drive to the Rhine (Operations Veritable and Grenade), the Rhine crossings (Operation Plunder) and the battle of the Ruhr Pocket until April 1945.
 * 7) The US 17th Airborne Division also took part in the Rhine crossings as part of Operation Varsity in March 1945.
 * 8) In April and May 1945, the US XVIII Airborne Corps, with the US 8th Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division and 7th Armored Divisions, was attached to the 21st Army Group for the drive from the Elbe to the Baltic Sea.

Commanders

 * June 1943 – December 1943 General Bernard Paget
 * January 1944 – August 1945 General Bernard Montgomery

title: 21st Army Group


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Talk:List of British Commands and Army groups

Allied armies?
in what way are the Allied Armies in Italy an army group, or for that matter, any different from the 15th Army Group? (that was me, ugen64)

 * Allied Armies in Italy and 15th Army Group commanded the Allied formations in Italy at different times. If you look at the transition from Wilson to Alexander as SACMED, then you will see that Allied Armies in Italy and 15th Army Group were different. The former was organised along British lines and the latter along American lines; quite different. Alexander took many of his staff from Allied Armies in Italy to Allied Forces Headquarters.
 * David Newton 15:52, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Ah, I see (actually I didn't research, I'll trust your word). Then I remove my objections... of course, those weren't very substantial, anyhow. ugen64 02:53, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

25AG?
Excuse me, but was there a 25AG in NW Europe? The Operation Plunder article I just wrote indicates there was one. Paul, in Saudi

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Świecie

Świecie (Schwetz) is a town in northern Poland with 24,841 inhabitants (2023), capital of Świecie County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is located within the ethnocultural region of Kociewie.

Location
Świecie is located on the west bank of river Vistula at the mouth of river Wda, approximately 40 km north-east of Bydgoszcz, 105 kilometers south of Gdańsk and 190 kilometers south-west of Kaliningrad.

History
A fishermen's village existed at the site of the present-day town in the Early Middle Ages. The area became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century. The name of the town comes from the Polish word świecić, which means "to shine". During the period of the fragmentation of Poland, Świecie became the residence of Pomeranian Duke Grzymisław. Grzymisław's duchy included part of Gdańsk Pomerania with prominent towns of Starogard Gdański and Lubiszewo Tczewskie, as well as Skarszewy.

The Teutonic Order conquered Gdańsk in 1309 and in 1310 bought the region in Soldin from the Margraves of Brandenburg, who claimed the region, which however legally formed part of Poland. By then, the settlement already had the status of Civitas, just as Gdańsk and Tczew did. Świecie was granted a municipal form of government by the Teutonic Order, when it was still located on the high west bank of the Vistula. Probably because of destruction by fire, during the period 1338–1375 the town was relocated down into the valley at the Vistula. The town was briefly recaptured by the Poles after their victory in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

In 1454, in the beginning stages of the Thirteen Years' War, it was captured by the Prussian Confederation, which opposed Teutonic rule, and upon the request of which King Casimir IV Jagiellon re-incorporated the territory to the Kingdom of Poland that same year. The Teutonic Knights renounced any claims to the town, and recognized it as part of Poland in 1466. Administratively it formed part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship in the province of Royal Prussia in the Greater Poland Province. The town prospered due to its location at the intersection of the Amber Road and the trade route connecting Western Pomerania with Warmia, Masuria and Lithuania. In the 17th century, Świecie suffered as a result of the Swedish invasion of Poland and an epidemic.

In 1772, during the First Partition of Poland, the town was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and as Schwetz was integrated into the newly formed Province of West Prussia. In 1871, it also became part of Germany. The economic development was decisively improved by the connection to the railway network in 1888. In 1905, the town had a Protestant church, two Catholic churches and a synagogue. In 1910, Schwetz had a population of 8,042, of which 4,206 (52.3%) were German-speaking, 3,605 (44.8%) were Polish-speaking and 166 (2.1%) were bilingual in German and another language.

After World War I and the restoration of independent Poland, Świecie was restored by Germany to Poland in 1920 according to the Treaty of Versailles and became part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. In 1920, Stanisław Kostka, a distinguished Polish activist who was active in Grudziądz and Świecie under Prussian rule, became the mayor of the town. Stanisław Kostka built new flood embankments that protect Świecie from floods to this day, and under his administration the town developed economically and culturally.

During the Second World War, Nazi Germany occupied Świecie and annexed it on 8 October 1939, making it the seat of the Kreis county of Schwetz. It was administered as part of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. Prominent Poles were arrested using secret politically targeted hit list and murdered using the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz paramilitaries. Local Poles were murdered in large massacres in Świecie, Grupa and Mniszek.

"People shot were finished off by blows delivered by shovels and the butts of assault rifles; they were buried in mass graves when still alive. Mothers were forced to place their children in the pits where they were shot together. Before executions women and girls were raped.(...) [The atrocities] evoked horror even in the Germans, including some soldiers. Terrified at what they saw in the town of Świecie two of them felt compelled to submit a report [to military authorities]."

The Germans also murdered the staff and 1,350 patients of the local psychiatric hospital in large massacres in the Szpęgawski and Luszkówko forests. Local Poles were also subjected to expulsions.

The town was captured by combined Polish and Soviet forces on February 10, 1945, and restored to Poland, where it became part of the Bydgoszcz Voivodeship formed in 1946 in the People's Republic of Poland. The town grew rapidly with population reaching 13,500 by 1961. Sugar refinery was expanded, meat, cattle feed plants, and mills were built, including the paper factory launched in 1968, with 4,600 employees. In 1988 Świecie was awarded with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest state orders.

Major corporations

 * Mondi Świecie SA (before, known as Mondi Packaging Paper Świecie SA, and Frantschach Świecie SA as well as Celuloza Świecie SA) – paper products and packaging

Education

 * Wyższa Szkoła Menedżerska (Higher School of Management)
 * I LO im. Floriana Ceynowy
 * II LO w Świeciu
 * Zespół Szkół Ponadgimnazjalnych

Sport

 * Wda Świecie football club
 * Polpak Świecie basketball team

Notable residents

 * Heinrich von Plauen (the Elder) (ca. 1370–1429), 27th grand master of the Teutonic Order
 * Oskar Cassel (1849–1923), German liberal politician
 * Nikolaus von Halem (1905–1944), German lawyer and resistance fighter
 * Rolf Stein (1911–1999), German-French Sinologist and Tibetologist
 * Günther Radusch (1912-1988), Luftwaffe pilot
 * (born 1932), Polish legal historian, professor, academic lecturer
 * (1937–2007), Polish writer and publicist
 * Janusz Józefowicz (born 1959), Polish director, choreographer, creator of Metro (musical)
 * Jacek Bobrowicz (born 1962), retired Polish football player
 * (born 1967), Polish painter
 * Aleksy Kuziemski (born 1977), Polish professional boxer
 * Dawid Konarski (born 1989), Polish volleyball player, member of the Poland men's national volleyball team, 2014 and 2018 World Champion
 * Paweł Paczkowski (born 1993), Polish handball player, member of the Poland men's national handball team

title: Świecie


text:
Nakło nad Notecią

Nakło nad Notecią ( Polish pronunciation: ; Nakel an der Netze) is a town in northern Poland on the river Noteć with 23,687 inhabitants (2007). It is the seat of Nakło County, and also of Gmina Nakło nad Notecią, situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is located in the ethnocultural region of Krajna.

History
Nakło began to develop as a Pomeranian settlement by the middle of the 10th century. It was initially called Nakieł, and its name comes from the Old Polish word nakieł. The name morphed into Nakło in the 16th century. The town was first mentioned in 11th-century documents. Between 1109 and 1113 it fell to Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland. It received Magdeburg town rights in 1299. It was a royal town of the Polish Crown and a county seat located in the Kalisz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province.

Nakło was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia during the First Partition of Poland in 1772 and known by the German name Nakel. It began to develop significantly after the completion of the Bydgoszcz Canal, which connected the Vistula with the Noteć, Warta, and Oder rivers. After the defeat of Prussia in the Napoleonic War of the Fourth Coalition, Nakło became part of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, it was restored to Prussia in the Congress of Vienna as part of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen. One of the main escape routes for surviving insurgents of the Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through the town.

During the course of 19th-century industrialization, Nakło developed further after being connected with the Prussian Eastern Railway in 1851. It became part of the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871. After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and many inhabitants joined the Greater Poland uprising (1918–19) in aim to reintegrate the town with the reborn state. The town was captured by Polish insurgents on 1 January 1919, however, they were forced to withdraw in accordance to a Polish-German truce. The Germans then brought reinforcements to the town. In June 1919, American and British journalists visited the town, and the Germans tried to keep Poles away from the journalists. Local Polish craftsman Antoni Nadskakuła shouted a pro-Polish and pro-Allied slogan to the journalists, and was later lynched by the Germans in revenge, and his workshop was destroyed. The town was eventually restored to the Second Polish Republic according to the Treaty of Versailles. Within interwar Poland, it was administratively located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship.

During the invasion of Poland, which started World War II, the German army invaded the town on 3 September 1939, and afterwards it was occupied by Nazi Germany until January 1945. The German gendarmerie and the Selbstschutz carried out mass arrests of Poles in October and November 1939, and a prison for Poles was established in the local gymnasium. Many Poles from Nakło, including teachers, craftsmen, merchants and children, were murdered in large massacres in the nearby village of Paterek. In November 1939, the commander of the SD-EK 16 declared that all Polish intelligentsia capable of resistance had been eliminated. Many Polish families expelled by the Germans from the region were deported to Nakło and then marched from the town to the nearby Potulice concentration camp. 73 Poles from the Nakło County, including 20 policemen, were also murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940. In August 1944, the Germans brought around 300 Polish forced labourers aged 15–50 from the Wyrzysk area to the town, and then deported them to a newly established forced labour camp in Jajkowo.

The town was administratively part of the Bydgoszcz Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998.

Sports
The local football club is. It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable residents

 * Elizabeth Granowska (c. 1372–1420), Queen consort of Poland, wife of King Władysław II Jagiełło
 * William Raphael (1833–1914), artist
 * Nathan Porges (1848–1924), rabbi
 * Hermann von Strantz (1853–1936), German general
 * Ignaz Jastrow (1856-1937), economist and historian
 * Szczęsny Dettloff (1878–1961), historian of art
 * Abraham Buschke (1868-1943), doctor
 * Klemens Biniakowski (1902–1985), sprinter
 * Rafał Blechacz (born 1985), classical pianist, winner of International Chopin Piano Competition

Twin towns
Nakło nad Notecią is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇸 Seymour (United States)
 * 🇩🇪 Elsterwerda (Germany)
 * Naklo (Slovenia)

title: Nakło nad Notecią


text:
User talk:Rainer Wasserfuhr~enwiki

Hello new user and welcome to Wikipedia. A few tips for you:

 * Peruse Welcome, newcomers and associated pages
 * Sign talk page entries with ~, which is automatically converted to a name and date
 * Ask questions on Village pump
 * Have fun.

-- Alexandros 14:42, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ray Solomonoff
Do you have a source for Solomonoff's death this year? I have reverted it until it can be verified. Also, you should never mark such a large change (the death of a person) as a minor edit, even if the amount of text changed is small. See WP:Minor edit. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 21:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

 * see http://twitter.com/bengoertzel/status/6536359942 Rainer Wasserfuhr (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

 * ah, that's too bad. It seems like we ought to wait until a more reputable source comes out to put a death date though. I'm sure he'll have an obituary. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 23:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

 * i think the source is highly reputable: Ben Goertzel. Rainer Wasserfuhr (talk) 13:52, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

 * I don't mean that Goertzel is not reputable, but that a tweet is not a good source. Rumors can spread quickly through channels like twitter and well intentioned people could easily propagate them without checking the facts. Looking at Goertzel's article, there's no indication that he knew Solomonoff personally, so we don't know where he got the information from. Likewise, there's no rush to update the article and Wikipedia expects more fact-checking when it comes to WP:Biographies of living people. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

 * They "could", but BenGoertzel tweets under his RealName, in public. If he would be wrong, this would be corrected within minutes, which did not happen until now: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Solomonoff. So I estimate a correctness of his StateMent of at least 99%. Rainer Wasserfuhr (talk) 23:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

 * another source: http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3589 Rainer Wasserfuhr (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Outline of transhumanism
I noticed you are a transhumanist. Please take a look at this page and see if you can make it more informative/useful.

Thank you. The Transhumanist 05:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Hans-Joachim Frey
Hello Rainer Wasserfuhr,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Hans-Joachim Frey for deletion, because it's not written in English. To request a translation, please visit the translation page. If you'd like to contribute to another Wikipedia, take a look at our full list of language projects.

If you feel that I made a mistake, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Thanks,

Ypnypn (talk) 01:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Rainer Wasserfuhr. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Rainer Wasserfuhr~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 02:17, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Rainer Wasserfuhr~enwiki


text:
Twelve Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas, also known as the Twelve Days of Christmastide, are the festive Christian season celebrating the Nativity.

Christmas Day is the First Day. The Twelve Days are 25 December to 5 January, counting first and last. The Octave, or Eighth Day, is New Year's Day and the Feast of the Circumcision, the day Jesus was circumcised according to the faith. The evening of the last day is Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve, the next morning being Epiphany.

For Christian denominations such as the Anglican Communion or the Lutheran Church, the Twelve Days are identical to Christmastide. For the Roman Catholic Church, however, Christmastide lasts longer, running through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. For some, the Twelve Days are considered December 26 to January 6, thus including Epiphany.

History
In 567, the Council of Tours "proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany (that is, through the end of 5 January, as Epiphany begins the following day) as a sacred and festive season, and established the duty of Advent fasting in preparation for the feast." Christopher Hill, as well as William J. Federer, states that this was done in order to solve the "administrative problem for the Roman Empire as it tried to coordinate the solar Julian calendar with the lunar calendars of its provinces in the east."

Eastern Christianity
The Armenian Apostolic Church and Armenian Catholic Church celebrate the Birth and Baptism of Christ on the same day, so that there is no distinction between a feast of Christmas and a feast of Epiphany.

The Oriental Orthodox (other than the Armenians), the Eastern Orthodox, and the Eastern Catholics who follow the same traditions have a twelve-day interval between the two feasts. Christmas and Epiphany are celebrated by these churches on 25 December and 6 January of the Julian calendar, which correspond to 7 and 19 January on the Gregorian calendar. The Twelve Days, using the Gregorian calendar, end at sunset on 18 January.

Eastern Orthodoxy
For the Eastern Orthodox, both Christmas and Epiphany are among the Twelve Great Feasts that are only second to Easter in importance.

The period between Christmas and Epiphany is fast-free. During this period one celebration leads into another. The Nativity of Christ is a three-day celebration: the formal title of the first day (i.e. Christmas Eve) is "The Nativity According to the Flesh of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ", and celebrates not only the Nativity of Jesus, but also the Adoration of the Shepherds of Bethlehem and the arrival of the Magi; the second day is referred to as the "Synaxis of the Theotokos", and commemorates the role of the Virgin Mary in the Incarnation; the third day is known as the "Third Day of the Nativity", and is also the feast day of the Protodeacon and Protomartyr Saint Stephen. 29 December is the Orthodox Feast of the Holy Innocents. The Afterfeast of the Nativity (similar to the Western octave) continues until 31 December (that day is known as the Apodosis or "leave-taking" of the Nativity).

The Saturday following the Nativity is commemorated by special readings from the Epistle and Gospel  during the Divine Liturgy. The Sunday after the Nativity has its own liturgical commemoration in honour of "The Righteous Ones: Joseph the Betrothed, David the King and James the Brother of the Lord".

Another of the more prominent festivals that are included among the Twelve Great Feasts is that of the Circumcision of Christ on 1 January. On this same day is the feast day of Saint Basil the Great, and so the service celebrated on that day is the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil.

On 2 January begins the Forefeast of the Theophany. The Eve of the Theophany on 5 January is a day of strict fasting, on which the devout will not eat anything until the first star is seen at night. This day is known as Paramony (Greek Παραμονή "Eve"), and follows the same general outline as Christmas Eve. That morning is the celebration of the Royal Hours and then the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil combined with Vespers, at the conclusion of which is celebrated the Great Blessing of Waters, in commemoration of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. There are certain parallels between the hymns chanted on Paramony and those of Good Friday, to show that, according to Orthodox theology, the steps that Jesus took into the Jordan River were the first steps on the way to the Cross. That night the All-Night Vigil is served for the Feast of the Theophany.

Western Christianity
Within the Twelve Days of Christmas, there are celebrations both secular and religious.

Christmas Day, if it is considered to be part of the Twelve Days of Christmas and not as the day preceding the Twelve Days, is celebrated by Christians as the liturgical feast of the Nativity of the Lord. It is a public holiday in many nations, including some where the majority of the population is not Christian. On this see the articles on Christmas and Christmas traditions.

26 December is "St. Stephen's Day", a feast day in the Western Church. In the United Kingdom and its former colonies, it is also the secular holiday of Boxing Day. In some parts of Ireland it is denominated "Wren Day".

New Year's Eve (31 December) is the feast of Pope St. Sylvester I and is known also as "Silvester". The transition that evening to the new year is an occasion for secular festivities in many nations, and in several languages is known as "St. Sylvester Night" ("Notte di San Silvestro" in Italian, "Silvesternacht" in German, "Réveillon de la Saint-Sylvestre" in French, and "סילבסטר" in Hebrew).

New Year's Day (1 January) is an occasion for further secular festivities or for rest from the celebrations of the night before. In the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, it is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, liturgically celebrated on the Octave Day of Christmas. It has also been celebrated, and still is in some denominations, as the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, because according to Jewish tradition He would have been circumcised on the eighth day after His Birth, inclusively counting the first day and last day. This day, or some day proximate to it, is also celebrated by the Roman Catholics as World Day of Peace.

In many nations, e. g., the United States, the Solemnity of Epiphany is transferred to the first Sunday after 1 January, which can occur as early as 2 January. That solemnity, then, together with customary observances associated with it, usually occur within the Twelve Days of Christmas, even if these are considered to end on 5 January rather than 6 January.

Other Roman Catholic liturgical feasts on the General Roman Calendar that occur within the Octave of Christmas and therefore also within the Twelve Days of Christmas are the Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist on 27 December; the Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December; Memorial of St. Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr on 29 December; and the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas or, if there is no such Sunday, on 30 December. Outside the Octave, but within the Twelve Days of Christmas, there are the feasts of Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus on 2 January and the Memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus on 3 January.

Other saints are celebrated at a local level.

Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
The Second Council of Tours of 567 noted that, in the area for which its bishops were responsible, the days between Christmas and Epiphany were, like the month of August, taken up entirely with saints' days. Monks were therefore in principle not bound to fast on those days. However, the first three days of the year were to be days of prayer and penance so that faithful Christians would refrain from participating in the idolatrous practices and debauchery associated with the new year celebrations. The Fourth Council of Toledo (633) ordered a strict fast on those days, on the model of the Lenten fast.

England in the Middle Ages
In England in the Middle Ages, this period was one of continuous feasting and merrymaking, which climaxed on Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas season on 5 January (the last night before Epiphany which started 6 January). William Shakespeare used it as the setting for one of his most famous stage plays, Twelfth Night. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas revels.

Some of these traditions were adapted from the older pagan customs, including the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yuletide. Some also have an echo in modern-day pantomime where traditionally authority is mocked and the principal male lead is played by a woman, while the leading older female character, or 'Dame', is played by a man.

Colonial North America
The early North American colonists brought their version of the Twelve Days over from England, and adapted them to their new country, adding their own variations over the years. For example, the modern-day Christmas wreath may have originated with these colonials. A homemade wreath would be fashioned from local greenery, and fruits, if available, were added. Making the wreaths was one of the traditions of Christmas Eve; they would remain hung on each home's front door beginning on Christmas Night (first night of Christmas) through Twelfth Night or Epiphany morning. As was already the tradition in their native England, all decorations would be taken down by Epiphany morning and the remainder of the edibles would be consumed. A special cake, the king cake, was also baked then for Epiphany.

United Kingdom and Commonwealth
Many in the UK and other Commonwealth nations still celebrate some aspects of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Boxing Day, 26 December, is a national holiday in many Commonwealth nations. Victorian era stories by Charles Dickens, and others, particularly A Christmas Carol, hold key elements of the celebrations such as the consumption of plum pudding, roasted goose and wassail. These foods are consumed more at the beginning of the Twelve Days in the UK.

Twelfth Night is the last day for decorations to be taken down, and it is held to be bad luck to leave decorations up after this. This is in contrast to the custom in Elizabethan England, when decorations were left up until Candlemas; this is still done in some other Western European countries such as Germany.

United States
In the United States, Christmas Day is a federal holiday which holds additional religious significance for Christians.

The traditions of the Twelve Days of Christmas have been nearly forgotten in the United States. Contributing factors include the popularity of the stories of Charles Dickens in nineteenth-century America, with their emphasis on generous giving; introduction of secular traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries, e. g., the American Santa Claus; and increase in the popularity of secular New Year's Eve parties. Presently, the commercial practice treats the Solemnity of Christmas, 25 December, the first day of Christmas, as the last day of the "Christmas" marketing season, as the numerous "after-Christmas sales" that commence on 26 December demonstrate. The commercial calendar has encouraged an erroneous assumption that the Twelve Days end on Christmas Day and must therefore begin on 14 December.

Many American Christians still celebrate the traditional liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, especially Amish, Anglo-Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Moravians, Nazarenes, Orthodox Christians, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics. In Anglicanism, the designation of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" is used liturgically in the Episcopal Church in the US, having its own invitatory antiphon in the Book of Common Prayer for Matins.

Christians who celebrate the Twelve Days may give gifts on each of them, with each of the Twelve Days representing a wish for a corresponding month of the new year. They may feast on traditional foods and otherwise celebrate the entire time through the morning of the Solemnity of Epiphany. Contemporary traditions include lighting a candle for each day, singing the verse of the corresponding day from the famous The Twelve Days of Christmas, and lighting a yule log on Christmas Eve and letting it burn some more on each of the twelve nights. For some, the Twelfth Night remains the night of the most festive parties and exchanges of gifts. Some households exchange gifts on the first (25 December) and last (5 January) days of the Twelve Days. As in former times, the Twelfth Night to the morning of Epiphany is the traditional time during which Christmas trees and decorations are removed.

title: Twelve Days of Christmas


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Cognitive neuropsychology

Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. Cognitive psychology is the science that looks at how mental processes are responsible for the cognitive abilities to store and produce new memories, produce language, recognize people and objects, as well as our ability to reason and problem solve. Cognitive neuropsychology places a particular emphasis on studying the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological illness with a view to inferring models of normal cognitive functioning. Evidence is based on case studies of individual brain damaged patients who show deficits in brain areas and from patients who exhibit double dissociations. Double dissociations involve two patients and two tasks. One patient is impaired at one task but normal on the other, while the other patient is normal on the first task and impaired on the other. For example, patient A would be poor at reading printed words while still being normal at understanding spoken words, while the patient B would be normal at understanding written words and be poor at understanding spoken words. Scientists can interpret this information to explain how there is a single cognitive module for word comprehension. From studies like these, researchers infer that different areas of the brain are highly specialised. Cognitive neuropsychology can be distinguished from cognitive neuroscience, which is also interested in brain-damaged patients, but is particularly focused on uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive processes.

History

Cognitive neuropsychology has its roots in the diagram-making approach to language disorder that started in the second half of the 19th century. The discovery that aphasia takes different forms depending on the location of brain damage provided a powerful framework for understanding brain function.

In 1861, Paul Broca reported a post mortem study of an aphasic patient who was speechless apart from a single nonsense word: "Tan". Broca showed that an area of the left frontal lobe was damaged. As Tan was unable to produce speech but could still understand it, Broca argued that this area might be specialised for speech production and that language skills might be localized to this cortical area. Broca did a similar study on another patient, Lelong, a few weeks later. Lelong, like Tan, could understand speech but could only repeat the same five words. After examining his brain, Broca noticed that Lelong had a lesion in approximately the same area as his patient Tan. He also noticed that in the more than 25 patients he examined with aphasia, they all had lesions to the left frontal lobe but there was no damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. From this he concluded that the function of speech was probably localized in the inferior frontal gyrus of the left hemisphere of the brain, an area now known as Broca's area.

Karl Wernicke subsequently reported patients with damage further back in the temporal lobe who could speak but were unable to understand what was said to them, providing evidence for two potentially interconnected language centres. These clinical descriptions were integrated into a theory of language organisation by Lichtheim. Subsequently, these models were used and developed to inform Dejerine's account of reading, Liepmann's theory of action and Lissauer's 1890 account of object recognition and Lewandowsky and Stadelmann's 1908 account of calculation. However, the early 20th century saw a reaction to the overly-precise accounts of the diagram-making neurologists. Pierre Marie challenged conclusions against previous evidence of Broca's areas in 1906 and Henry Head attacked the whole field of cerebral localisation 1926.

The modern science of cognitive neuropsychology emerged during the 1960s stimulated by the insights of the neurologist Norman Geschwind who demonstrated that the insights of Broca and Wernicke were still clinically relevant. The other stimulus to the discipline was the cognitive revolution and the growing science of cognitive psychology which had emerged as a reaction to behaviorism in the mid-20th century. Psychologists in the mid-1950s acknowledged that the structure of mental information-processing systems could be investigated in scientifically acceptable ways. They developed and applied new cognitive processing models to explain experimental data from not only studies of speech and language but also those of selective attention. Cognitive psychologists and clinical neuropsychologists developed more research collaborations to gain a better understanding of these disorders. The rebirth of neuropsychology was marked by the publishing of two seminal collaborative papers from Marshall & Newcombe (1966) on reading and Warrington & Shallice (1969) on memory. Subsequently, work by pioneers such as Elizabeth Warrington, Brenda Milner, Tim Shallice, Alan Baddeley and Lawrence Weiskrantz demonstrated that neurological patients were an important source of data for cognitive psychologists.

It took less than one decade for neuropsychology to be fully re-established. More achievements in neuropsychology were recognized: the establishment of the first major book discussing neuropsychology using a cognitive approach, Deep Dyslexia, in 1980 after a scientific meeting about the topic in Oxford in 1977, the birth of the Cognitive Neuropsychology journal in 1984, and the publishing of the first textbook of neuropsychology, Human Cognitive Neuropsychology in 1988.

A particular area of interest was memory. Patients with amnesia caused by injuries to the hippocampus in the temporal cortex and midbrain areas (especially the mamillary bodies) were of early interest. A patient with severe case of amnesia will not be able to remember meeting the examiner if they leave the room and return, let alone events of the previous day (episodic memory), but they will still be able to learn how to tie their shoes (procedural memory), remember a series of numbers for a few seconds (short-term memory or working memory) and be able to recall historical events they have learned in school (semantic memory). By contrast, patients may lose their short-term memory abilities while retaining their long term memory functions. Many other studies like this have been done in the field of neuropsychology examining lesions and the effect they have on certain areas of the brain and their functions.

Studies on the amnesic patient Henry Molaison, formerly known as patient H.M., are commonly cited as some of the precursors, if not the beginning of modern cognitive neuropsychology. Molaison had parts of his medial temporal lobes surgically removed to treat intractable epilepsy in 1953. Much of the hippocampus was also removed along with the medial temporal lobes. The treatment proved successful in reducing his dangerous seizures, but left him with a profound but selective amnesia. After the surgery, Molaison was able to remember some big events from before the surgery, such as the stock market crash in 1929, but was confused about many others and could no longer form new memories. This accidental experiment showed scientists how the brain processes different types of memory. Because Molaison's impairment was caused by surgery, the damaged parts of his brain were known, information which was usually not knowable in a time before accurate neuroimaging became widespread. Scientists concluded that while the hippocampus is needed in the creation of new memories, it is not needed in the retrieval of old ones; they are two separate processes. They also realized that the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobes, both of the areas removed from Molaison, are the areas responsible for converting short-term memory to long-term memory.

Much of the early work of cognitive neuropsychology was carried out with limited reference to the detailed localisation of brain pathology. Neuroimaging was relatively imprecise and other anatomically based techniques were also limited. The emphasis of many researchers as late as 1990 was on the analysis of patterns of cognitive deficit rather than on where the injury was located. Despite the lack of detailed anatomical data, studies of reading, language and memory had a number of important implications. The first is that certain cognitive processes (such as language) could be damaged separately from others, and so might be handled by distinct and independent cognitive (and neural) processes. (For more on the cognitive neuropsychological approach to language, see Eleanor Saffran, among others.) The second is that such processes might be localized to specific areas of the brain. Whilst both of these claims are still controversial to some degree, the influence led to a focus on brain injury as a potentially fruitful way of understanding the relationship between psychology and neuroscience.

Methods
A key approach within cognitive neuropsychology has been to use single case studies and dissociation as a means of testing theories of cognitive function. For example, if a theory states that reading and writing are simply different skills stemming from a single cognitive process, it should not be possible to find a person who, after brain injury, can write but not read or read but not write. This selective breakdown in skills suggests that different parts of the brain are specialized for the different processes and so the cognitive systems are separable.

The philosopher Jerry Fodor has been particularly influential in cognitive neuropsychology, particularly with the idea that the mind, or at least certain parts of it, may be organised into independent modules. Evidence that cognitive skills may be damaged independently seem to support this theory to some degree, although it is clear that some aspects of mind (such as belief for example) are unlikely to be modular. Fodor, a strict functionalist, rejects the idea that the neurological properties of the brain have any bearing on its cognitive properties and doubts the whole discipline of cognitive neuropsychology.

With improved neuroimaging techniques, it has been possible to correlate patterns of impairment with a knowledge of exactly which parts of the nervous system are damaged, allowing previously undiscovered functional relationships to be explored (the lesion method). Contemporary cognitive neuropsychology uses many of the same techniques and technologies from the wider science of neuropsychology and fields such as cognitive neuroscience. These may include neuroimaging, electrophysiology and neuropsychological tests to measure either brain function or psychological performance. Useful technology in cognitive neuropsychology includes positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These techniques make it possible to identify the areas of the brain responsible for performing certain cognitive tasks by measuring blood flow in the brain. PET scans sense the low-level radiation in the brain and produce 3-D images, whereas an fMRI works on a magnetic signal and is used to “map the brain”. Electroencephalography (EEG) records the brain’s electrical activity and can identify changes that occur over milliseconds. EEG is often used in patients with epilepsy to detect seizure activity.

The principles of cognitive neuropsychology have recently been applied to mental illness, with a view to understanding, for example, what the study of delusions may tell us about the function of normal belief. This relatively young field is known as cognitive neuropsychiatry.

title: Cognitive neuropsychology


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Łosice

Łosice (לאָשיץ Loshitz, Лосице / Лoсічы Lositze) is a town in eastern Poland, seat of the Łosice County and Gmina Łosice (commune) in the Masovian Voivodeship.

History
Łosice was first mentioned in 1264, as a medieval settlement from around the 11th–13th centuries; situated near the village of Dzięcioły. However, the location prevented the town's further development and in the late 15th and early 16th century, the community was moved to Łosice's present location. The first documented history of the town is preserved in the privileges issued by King Alexander Jagiellon in Radom on May 10, 1505; thus releasing Łosice from under the Ruthenian and Lithuanian city laws, and giving it more progressive Magdeburg rights. Private judiciary was revoked enabling the inhabitants to form a municipal government with a mayor and city council. The privileges allowed also for weekly markets and four fairs a year at a more convenient location; and, proposed the establishment of a town hall.

By 1551, there were two Eastern Orthodox churches, and two Roman Catholic churches in Łosice founded and endowed by King Sigismund I the Old. Throughout the 16th century the town enjoyed a period of economic development, with most inhabitants living off trade in leather, furs, and salt; as well as crafts, and a variety of services. According to a 1580 registry, there were 47 carpenters, 32 tailors, 20 bakers, 10 butchers, 7 stove fitters, and 4 blacksmiths in the town, not to mention millers, a locksmith, a goldsmith and a weaver. A nearly complete destruction of Łosice came about during the Swedish Deluge of 1655–1660. Only in the second half of the 18th century, the town began to gradually recover.

In 1795, after the Third Partition of Poland Łosice fell under Austrian rule. It was regained by Poles following the Austro–Polish War of 1809, and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw. As a result of the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, the duchy ceased to exist, and the town came under Russian rule. During the November Uprising a Polish battalion under Colonel Raczyński formed in the town with many local residents. Before and during the January Uprising against the Russian rulership, local doctor Władysław Czarkowski led a unit of several hundred conspirators in an attack against the garrisons. After the Uprising's defeat, the Russians brought reprisals against the Polish population. Łosice had been deprived of its Roman Catholic parish, and in 1867 lost its municipal rights. The process of Russification policies intensified right until the liberation of Poland. After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of Łosice. In 1919, town rights were restored.

In 1975–1998, it was administratively located in the Biała Podlaska Voivodeship.

History of the Jewish community
Between the world wars, there were approximately 2,900 Jews in Łosice, about 70% of its inhabitants. They were living a full life there, handling with politics, religion, economic, youth groups and everyday life. In 1920, a pogrom took place against the town's Jewish by the local Polish citizens.

On September 12, 1939, during the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland which started World War II, the town was taken over by the Germans, but shortly thereafter it was transferred to the Soviet Union. In the wake of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the town returned under German occupation, and they began to rob and murder Jews. The Judenrat that has been established in the town in early 1940, headed by Gershon Levin, ordered hundreds of Jewish workers to be sent to forced labor in German labor camps. Later, many Jews from the surrounding settlements were brought into the town. In December 1940, the Jews of Łosice were assembled in the ghetto where other Jews were brought. Jews were executed from time to time. Payments were demanded from the Jews. In May 1942, the number of inhabitants of the Łosice ghetto reached 6,800.

On August 22, 1942, SS men and Ukrainian policemen raided the ghetto in the town and marched its Jewish inhabitants to Siedlce, killing about 1,000 people on the way, and the remaining 5,500 Jews were loaded onto freight cars and sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. The 300 Jews who remained in Łosice were sent off to be murdered on November 27, 1942. Just a few Jews survived the Nazi extermination camps and returned to Łosice in 1945, but they were violently expelled by the Polish citizens of the town, who took over the Jewish property.

Points of interest

 * Neo-Gothic parish church of St. Zygmunt, built between 1906 and 1909.
 * Former convent of Communion priests, rebuilt as hospital.
 * Neo-Gothic cemetery chapel of St. Stanisław from 1845.
 * Baroque roadside statue erected in 1775.
 * Monument to Children of Zamojszczyzna who died in Łosice during the Nazi German kidnapping raid of 1943, located at the local cemetery.
 * Parish church in Niemojki of 1783.

The biggest attraction in Łosice is a recreational reservoir, situated near the city center and the train station. In summer, there is a concession there as well as, kayak-and-water-bike rentals. The complex is located near the municipal park, built at the site of the former Jewish cemetery which was destroyed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The cemetery was established in 1690 under the privilege granted by King John III Sobieski. The collection of tombstones put on display, is the largest collection of Jewish sacral art in southern Podlasie region. The oldest stonework dates back to the first half of the 19th century.

Notes and references

 * Jewish Community in Łosice on Virtual Shtetl
 * JewishGen Communities Database - Łosice

title: Łosice


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Terespol

Terespol (Тэрэ́спаль) is a border town in eastern Poland on the border with Belarus. It lies on the border river Bug, directly opposite the city of Brest, Belarus. It has 5,794 inhabitants as of 2014.

Overview
Since 1999 Terespol has been within Biała Podlaska County in Lublin Voivodeship. Between 1975 and 1998 it belonged to Biała Podlaska Voivodeship. The town is a busy border crossing between Poland and Belarus on the European route E30 which links Berlin-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow. Another crossing into Brest is located at Kukuryki northwest of Terespol. There was also a local train between Brest and Terespol. It comes 3 times a day. The trip took 18 minutes and was a very comfortable way of crossing border between Belarus and Poland. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the train was cancelled at the beginning of 2020 and has been suspended for an indefinite period.

Terespol features in a novel by the Yiddish Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Family Moskat (1950), in which the young protagonist, Asa Heshel Bennet, comes to Warsaw from his hometown of Terespol Minor to study.

History
The town of Terespol is located in the spot of a village called Błotków or Błotkowo, which existed in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1512, this area became property of a nobleman called Iwan Sapieha of Kodeń. Later it belonged to the Hornostaj and Dorohostajski families. Administratively it was part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship until 1566, and the Brest Litovsk Voivodeship afterwards until the Partitions of Poland. In 1609, King Sigismund III of Poland built here a spacious palace with a vast garden. Due to proximity to the city of Brześć Litewski (Brest), the settlement prospered. During Swedish invasion of Poland (1655–1660), Błotków together with the palace were ransacked and burned to the ground by Swedish soldiers.

In the second half of the 17th century, Błotków with its ruined palace was purchased by Castellan of Vilnius Józef Bogusław Słuszka, who founded here a town, named Terespol after his wife, Teresa née Gosiewska. In 1697, Holy Trinity church was built here, soon afterwards, Dominican friars settled in Terespol. In 1748, Terespol became property of Grand Treasurer of Lithuania Georg Detlev von Flemming, who made great contribution to the development of the town, draining local swamps and building a number of dykes and canals. Furthermore, Flemming introduced a number of German settlers, and built a manor house in the location of the destroyed royal castle. In 1757, one weekly and two one-day annual fairs were established. In 1764, Terespol was ransacked by private soldiers of Polish magnate Karol Stanisław "Panie Kochanku" Radziwiłł, who waged a personal war with Flemming for his support of the Czartoryski family. Later on the town passed to the Czartoryski family. After the Third Partition of Poland (1795) Terespol briefly belonged to the Habsburg Empire. After the Polish victory in the Austro-Polish War of 1809, it was part of the Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and from 1815 to 1916, it belonged to Russian-controlled Congress Poland. The town burned in several fires, but continued to prosper, due to the construction of a highway from Warsaw to Brest (1819–1823). After the November Uprising, Terespol belonged to the Russian Imperial government. In 1855, due to the construction of Brest Fortress, Terespol was moved westwards, and all buildings in the old town were destroyed for military purposes. In 1867, a railroad to Warsaw was completed; in 1870, it was extended to Brest. As a result of Russian discriminatory regulations the town saw a large influx of Jews, who then became the town's largest ethnic group.

In 1915, all residents living within 30 km from the fortress were forcibly resettled into Russia, and during the evacuation, the town was ransacked and burned. Terespol was reintegrated with Poland, after the country regained independence in 1918. In the Second Polish Republic Terespol was part of the Lublin Voivodeship. During World War II Terespol was briefly occupied by the Soviets in September 1939, and then by Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1944. During the occupation, most Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. The Germans also established a transit camp for Polish prisoners of war in Terespol. Terespol became a border town after the Soviet Union annexed former eastern territories of Poland.

Climate
Terespol has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) using the -3 C isotherm or a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb) using the 0 C isotherm.

Sights
Around Terespol one can find some of the old fortifications that were once part of the Brest Fortress. In Terespol there is a former powder magazine of the fortress. Other sights include the 19th-century monument to the construction of the highway connecting Warsaw with nearby Brest, and modern monuments: the Independence Monument and the Tadeusz Kościuszko monument.

Twin towns – Sister cities
Terespol is twinned with:
 * 🇧🇾 Brest in Belarus

title: Terespol


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Międzyrzec Podlaski

Międzyrzec Podlaski (Meserici, Meseritz) is a city in Biała Podlaska County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with the population of 17,162 inhabitants. The total area of the city is 20.03 km2. Międzyrzec is located near the Krzna river, not far from the border with Belarus.

History
The first official mention of Międzyrzec Podlaski as a town dates back to 1434, or (alternatively) 1455 and 1477 according to different historical sources. At that time, the newly established town was located along a busy merchant route from Lukow to Brzesc nad Bugiem. Międzyrzec quickly developed: in 1486, a Roman Catholic church was built here, and town's owner, Jan Nassutowicz, received permission for fairs. In 1598, a salt warehouse was opened, the town also was center of beer industry.

The period of peace and prosperity ended in 1648, when Miedzyrzec was raided by Zaporozhian Cossacks. During the Swedish invasion of Poland, the town was ransacked and burned by Swedes, who returned in 1706 and 1708, during the Great Northern War. Furthermore, Międzyrzec was raided by Russians in 1660.

In 1795, following the Partitions of Poland, the town was annexed by the Habsburg Empire. From 1809 until 1815, it belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw, and after Napoleonic Wars to Congress Poland under the control of the Russian Tsar. In 1867 it became a stop on the Polish railway system. By that time, Miedzyrzec was an important center of Greek Catholic Church: in 1772, Duke August Aleksander Czartoryski founded here Unite Church of St. Peter and Paul. Since mid-19th century, government of Russian-controlled Congress Poland initiated the process of Russification, aimed at the Uniates. As a result, two local Uniate churches were turned into Orthodox (1875).

A large Jewish community was present at least since the 16th century Międzyrzec. At the end of the 1930s in the reborn Polish Republic approximately 12,000 inhabitants, or 75% of its population, were Jewish.

World War II
In 1939, during the Nazi–Soviet Invasion of Poland, the city was overrun by Wehrmacht on 13 September 1939, and ceded to the Russians on 25 September, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Two weeks later, it was transferred back to Germany after the new Boundary Treaty. In 1940 six separate slave-labor camps were set up by the Nazis for some 2,000 local Jews; along with Judenrat, and the Jewish police.

The German army entered the Soviet occupation zone on 22 June 1941 under the codename Operation Barbarossa. More Jews from the surrounding area including expellees from Kraków were shipped in. On 19 April 1942 the Jews were ordered by the Gestapo to turn over 50 kg of gold within 3 days. Some 40 hostages were murdered on the streets. On 25–26 August 1942, the first mass deportation of Jews from Międzyrzec took place with around 10,000 prisoners forcibly put on 52 cattle cars (shipment #566 according to the German inventory) and sent to Treblinka extermination camp. Two days later, the Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto was established under the management of Judenrat. Several more mass deportation actions followed. On 17 July 1943, the ghetto was definitively liquidated, along with the local transit camp. Fewer than 1% of the Jewish population of the city survived the Nazi mass executions and deportations to death camps.

Economy
Of the approximately 4,900 employed citizens of the city, ca. 36% work in industrial fields, 19% in trade markets, and 11% in education. The unemployment rate in the city was 22% in October 2005.

The town lies at the intersection of two important national roads: DK2 (Poland's main east–west connector) and DK19. In the future Expressway S19 will run just west of the town. A 6.6 km section of it already constructed as the town's bypass road and opened in 2008 allows north–south traffic on DK19 road to avoid the town centre.

International relations
Międzyrzec Podlaski is referred to by various names in different languages including מעזריטש Mezri'tsh, Meserici, Міжрэчча, Meseritz, Meņdzižeca Podlaska, Palenkės Mendzyžecas, and Межиріччя.

Twin towns and Sister cities
Międzyrzec Podlaski is twinned with:
 * 🇫🇷 Thouars, France
 * 🇧🇾 Kobryn, Belarus
 * 🇧🇾 Malaryta, Belarus
 * 🇱🇹 Pogiry, Lithuania
 * 🇱🇻 Ludza, Latvia
 * 🇺🇦 Kamin-Kashyrskyi, Ukraine
 * 🇮🇱 Petah Tikva, Israel

Notable people

 * Jan Brożek
 * Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski
 * August Aleksander Czartoryski
 * Konstanty Adam Czartoryski
 * Yehoshua Leib Diskin
 * Morris Michael Edelstein
 * Judah David Eisenstein
 * Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski
 * Jacob ben Wolf Kranz
 * Kazimierz Kierzkowski
 * Ryszard Kornacki
 * Sława Przybylska
 * Moshe Rynecki
 * Franciszek Stefaniuk
 * Stanisław Żmijan
 * Yitzhak Yaakov Wachtfogel (in Hebrew)
 * Samson Zelig Rubinstein (Holocaust survivor buried in Wilmington, North Carolina)
 * Rabbi Ephraim Eliezer Zvi Hersh Charlap (in Hebrew)

title: Międzyrzec Podlaski


text:
Radzyń Podlaski

Radzyń Podlaski is a town in eastern Poland, about 60 km north of Lublin, with 15,808 inhabitants (2017). The town has been part of the Lublin Voivodeship since 1999, previously it was part of the Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Radzyń Podlaski County, and historically belongs to the region of Lesser Poland (despite the adjective Podlaski, which suggests that it is part of another Polish province, Podlaskie). The town was founded in 1468, and its most important landmark is the rococo Potocki Palace.

Radzyń lies on the Białka River within the South Podlasie Lowland, at the height of 150 m above sea level. The town has the area of 20,29 square kilometers, of which forests make only 5%. It is located along the Expressway S19, which passes through Białystok, Lublin and Rzeszów.

History
In the early years of Polish statehood Radzyń was located in extreme northeastern corner of Lesser Poland, near the border with Podlachia, which often passed between Poland, Ruthenia and the Duchy of Lithuania. The region was frequently raided by its neighbors, which had a negative impact on the economy. This sparsely populated borderland of Lesser Poland began to see improvements after 1385, when Poland and Lithuania formed the Polish–Lithuanian union under the Union of Krewo. Settlers from other part of Lesser Poland, as well as Mazovia, came to Radzyń, churches were built and villages were founded. According to historical documents, the town of Radzyń was preceded by a settlement called Kozirynek (also spelled as Cozirynek and Kozyrynek; this name appears in documents as late as 1580).

In 1456, first Roman Catholic parish at Radzyń was created, and in 1468, the town was incorporated based on Magdeburg rights. It was a royal possession, leased by kings to different noblemen, such as the Mniszech family. In 1690, King John III Sobieski granted several privileges to town's residents. At that time, Radzyń had Roman Catholic, Greek-Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as a synagogue. Radzyń was a private town, administratively located in the Lublin Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown. Since 1741 until the late 18th century, Radzyń belonged to the Potocki family. General Eustachy Potocki built a rococo palace here. His son Ignacy Potocki (1750–1809) was born here.

19th century
Following the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Radzyń was annexed by Austria, then following the Austro-Polish War, in 1809, it was liberated by Poles and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, and after its dissolution, in 1815 it became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. Many inhabitants participated in the large Polish uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864. In 1867 Russian authorities created Radzyń County, which gave the town a boost. Later on, Radzyń got a rail connection with Lublin and Siedlce, and the town began a period of development.

World War I
During World War I, the town was occupied by Germany. In November 1918, Poland regained independence, and the occupying German forces opened fire on Poles who tried to liberate the town, but it was still reintegrated with the reborn Polish state. Within the Second Polish Republic, Radzyń was the seat of a county in Lublin Voivodeship. The town was briefly occupied by the Russians during the Polish–Soviet War in mid-August 1920, and recaptured by Poles on August 16, 1920. After a major fire in 1930, the houses on the market square, formerly from wood, were rebuilt of stone and brick.

World War II
During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, on September 9, 1939, Radzyń was bombed by the Luftwaffe. In late September of that year, it was one of centers of Polish resistance, with units of Independent Operational Group Polesie stationed there for some time. The first Germans appeared in Radzyń after the Battle of Kock, in early October 1939.

In June 1940, during the AB-Aktion, the Germans carried out mass arrests of Poles, many of whom were afterwards imprisoned in the Lublin Castle and deported to concentration camps. From Radzyń, 6,000 local Jews were sent to Treblinka extermination camp in August 1942 amid gunfire and screams. Some went through the transit point in the Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto. The pacification actions were conducted by the Nazi German Reserve Police Battalion 101. The town was a major center of Home Army, with 4,200 members, and the German occupation lasted until July 23, 1944, when the Red Army entered the town. The Jewish community was never reconstituted.

Jewish community
Jews settled in Radzyn Podlaski in the 16th century. In the 19th century, it became known as an important center of Jewish learning. The town had a Jewish population of 2,900 before World War II. It was home to the Radzyn Hasidic dynasty.

Sport

 * Orlęta Radzyń Podlaski - football club

Landmarks
Among the local points of interest are the St. Trinity Church (1641), built in the so-called Lublin Renaissance style, as well as the Potocki Palace (1740s), built by a Polish-Italian architect Jakub Fontana. Its interior was destroyed twice: in 1915 by Imperial Russian troops, and in 1944 by the Wehrmacht during the occupation of Poland in World War II. The palace was in 1920 the headquarters of General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, during the Battle of Warsaw. Since 1920, it has served as office of local administration.

Notable residents

 * Szymon Buchbinder (1853– ca.1908) a Polish painter of genre and historical scenes
 * Zofia Grabczan (born 1962) a Polish politician was elected to the Sejm in 2005
 * Max Helfman (1901-1963) a Polish-American Jewish composer and choral conductor; emigrated in 1909
 * Dariusz Kowaluk (born 1996) a Polish 400m. sprinter, team gold medallist at the 2020 Summer Olympics
 * Gershon Henoch Leiner (1839–1890) a rebbe of the Izhbitza-Radzin dynasty
 * Shmuel Shlomo Leiner (1909–1942) the fifth Rebbe of the Izhbitza-Radzin dynasty
 * Karol Lipiński (1790–1861) a Polish music composer and virtuoso violinist
 * Ignacy Potocki (1750–1809) a Polish nobleman, a politician and writer.
 * Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko (1768–1844) a Polish nobleman, general, military commander, diplomat and politician.

title: Radzyń Podlaski


text:
Parczew

Parczew is a town in eastern Poland, with a population of 10,281 (2006). It is the capital of Parczew County in the Lublin Voivodeship.

Parczew historically belongs to Lesser Poland (Małopolska) region. The town lies 60 kilometers north of Lublin, and 70 kilometers south of Biala Podlaska. It has a rail station on the secondary-importance line from Lublin to Łuków, which was inaugurated in 1898.

History
The settlement of Parczew existed since the 12th century, lying near then-eastern border of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1401, it received Magdeburg rights town charter from King Władysław II Jagiełło. The union of Poland and Lithuania (see Union of Krewo) helped Parczew to develop, as it ceased to be a border town. The town was conveniently located on one of the routes joining the capitals of the two united nations - Kraków and Vilnius. In the Union of Horodło (1413), Parczew was designated to be the location of Polish–Lithuanian councils. The town emerged as one of the centers of political life of the two nations. Parczew was visited by all kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty, and the last council took place here in 1564. Parczew had a defensive wall, with three gates, and a royal residence, where Polish kings stayed on their way to and from Vilnius. The town was the seat of a starosta, with a town hall located on the market square, two bath houses, four mills and breweries. In the 16th century, it had three Roman Catholic churches, one Orthodox church, a synagogue, a school and a hospital. In 1500 and 1544, Parczew was destroyed in Crimean Tatars raids, and in 1655, it was seized, ransacked and burned by the Swedes (see Deluge). After the wars of the mid-17th century, the town did not recover until the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski. The 1st Polish Infantry Regiment was stationed in the town in 1793.

Parczew administratively belonged to the Lublin Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, when it was annexed by Austria. It was regained by Poles following the Austro-Polish War of 1809, and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw. After the duchy's dissolution, it was part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. During the January Uprising, on June 29, 1863, it was the site of a skirmish between Polish insurgents and Russian troops. In 1898, the rail line from Lublin, via Parczew, to Łuków was built. In 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the town. During the Polish–Soviet War, the town was briefly occupied by the Russian invaders, before it was recaptured by the Poles on August 16, 1920. In the interbellum, the town had a population of 10,000.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany. It was a center of Polish resistance. In local forests, numerous Home Army and Armia Ludowa units operated. On July 22, 1944, Parczew was liberated by the Home Army, and in the summer of 1945, the anti-Communist unit of Leon Taraszkiewicz attacked a local Urząd Bezpieczeństwa prison.

In 1955, Parczew County was created, and in 2001, the town celebrated its 600th anniversary. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Biała Podlaska Voivodeship.

Jews in Parczew
An organized Jewish community existed in the town since the early 16th century. Just before the outbreak of World War II the Jewish community numbered 5,000, more than half of the town's population. During the German occupation of Poland the Jews were first confined to a ghetto crammed with inhabitants of neighbouring settlements as well. In the course of the Holocaust, on August 19, 1942 the Nazi German Reserve Police Battalion 101 aided by the Trawniki men rounded up and deported 3,000 Jews to Treblinka extermination camp; 2,000 more Jews were loaded onto Holocaust trains and murdered upon arrival. The battalion returned to Parczew with the same company of Hiwis in October 1942. There were 5,000 more Jews in the ghetto. They were massacred in a mass shooting action and deported, at which point the town was declared Judenfrei ("free of Jews"). The Parczew partisans anti-Nazi fighter group operated in the forests around the town, which included Jewish men and women who managed to escape the slaughter.

Sights
Among points of interest there are:
 * wooden bell tower (1675),
 * former synagogue (19th century),
 * Neo-Gothic Collegiate Basilica of Saint John the Baptist (1905–1913).

Notable people

 * Sławomir Nazaruk (born 1975), retired Polish footballer

title: Parczew