Kamienna Góra


Kamienna Góra is a town in south-western Poland with 19,010 inhabitants. It is the seat of Kamienna Góra County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Kamienna Góra, although it is not part of the territory of the latter.
Kamienna Góra on the Bóbr river is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship between the Stone Mountains and the Rudawy Janowickie at the old trade route from Silesia to Prague, today part of the National Road No. 5. It lies approximately south-west of the regional capital Wrocław.

History

The area was part of the Great Moravian Empire in the Early Middle Ages, and became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century under its first ruler Mieszko I of Poland. During the times of the fragmentation of Poland it was part of the duchies of Silesia, Legnica, Jawor and Świdnica. In the early 13th century, Polish Duke Henry the Bearded erected a defensive castle at the site, due to its proximity to the Polish–Czech border. The settlement was mentioned in documents from 1232 and 1249. In 1254 the Piast Duke Bolesław II the Bald of Legnica gave the area to the Benedictine monastery of Opatovice, who already had established Grüssau Abbey at nearby Krzeszów. When the abbey passed to the Cistercians in 1289, Kamienna Góra was acquired by Duke Bolko I the Strict of Świdnica, who extended it as a stronghold against the nearby Kingdom of Bohemia and granted town rights in 1292. It received new privileges from Duke Bolko II the Small in 1334. Nevertheless, the duchy fell to the Bohemian crown with Bolko's death in 1368. It burnt down during the 1426 Hussite campaign to Silesia and in the 1460s it passed to the Kingdom of Hungary, before in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia, then under the rule of Polish prince Vladislaus II, who erected new town walls.
During the Thirty Years' War the town was plundered by Austrian and Swedish troops. As a result of the war, only two residents remained in the town in 1639. After Frederick II of Prussia had conquered Silesia with Landeshut in 1742, his fierce opponent Maria Theresa of Austria once again struck back in the course of the Seven Years' War. In 1760 Austrian troops under the command of field marshal Laudon invaded the province and on June 23 defeated a Prussian corps under Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué at the Battle of Landeshut.
The town was not destroyed during World War I and II, but during the latter, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp was established here. The town was captured by the Soviets on May 9, 1945 and after the war it became part of Poland. According to the Potsdam Agreement the native German populace was expelled in totality and the town was repopulated by Poles, expellees from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union and settlers from central Poland. Initially renamed to the 19th-century Polish name Kamieniogóra, in 1946 the name Kamienna Góra, which dates back to the 13th century was restored.

Sights

The main historic district of Kamienna Góra is the Old Town with the Freedom, Grunwald Squares and Brewery Squares, filled with numerous historic buildings. Among the historic sights of Kamienna Góra are:
There are also several monuments dedicated to the victims of the local branch of the Nazi German Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

Notable people

Kamienna Góra is twinned with: