à Âomà ¼a () is a city in north-eastern Poland, approximately to the north-east of Warsaw and west of Biaà Âystok. It is situated alongside the Narew River as part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of à Âomà ¼a County and has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of à Âomà ¼a since 1925.
à Âomà ¼a is one of the principal economic, educational, and cultural centres of north-eastern Masovia as well as one of the three main cities of Podlaskie Voivodeship (beside Biaà Âystok and Suwaà Âki). It lends its name to the protected area of à Âomà ¼a Landscape Park. The town is also the location of the à Âomà ¼a Brewery.
à Âomà ¼a was founded in the 10th century, on the site of the present day village called Stara à Âomà ¼a (Old à Âomà ¼a). It was first mentioned in official records in the 14th century. à Âomà ¼a received its municipal rights in 1416, and became an important political and economic center in the mid-16th century. à Âomà ¼a was a royal city of Poland and the capital of the à Âomà ¼a Land, an administrative unit (ziemia) of the Masovian Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province until Poland lost its independence in 1795.
Polish Duke Bolesà Âaw IV the Curly built a palace there in the 12th century. In 1444 the town was granted an exemption from the transit tax on Narew River contributing to its further development. In the 16th century King Sigismund II Augustus gave à Âomà ¼a the right to hold great fairs three times a year, similar to Warsaw and Pà Âock. In 1614 the Jesuits founded a Jesuit College, which as today's I Liceum Ogólnoksztaà Âcàce is among the oldest high schools in Poland. In 1618 a great fire destroyed most of the city, and six years later, an epidemic killed 5,021 persons decimating its population. A series of disasters (including the Swedish invasion and the Cossack raids) resulted in its rapid decline. The 3rd Polish National Cavalry Brigade was stationed in à Âomà ¼a before the Third Partition of Poland.
As a result of the Partitions of Poland à Âomà ¼a was annexed by Prussia in 1795. In 1807 it was included in the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, within which it was the seat of the à Âomà ¼a Department. In 1815 à Âomà ¼a became part of Congress Poland, which was forcibly integrated into the Russian Empire over the course of the 19th century. After the Russian massacres of Polish protesters in Warsaw in 1861, Polish demonstrations took place in à Âomà ¼a, at which even romantic poet Wà Âadysà Âaw Syrokomla gave a public speech, however, they ended in October 1861 when the Russians imposed martial law. Afterwards the Polish resistance began preparations for an uprising. In 1863 the January Uprising broke out and many local Poles joined it. In July 1863, the Russians carried out a massacre of 50 unarmed young Poles in the nearby forest in Wygoda, mainly students of local schools, who joined the uprising. The victims were tortured and murdered in gruesome ways: some had their eyes gouged out, bones broken, or insides torn out before they died. On 15 October a Russian imperial decree declared that it had annexed the Districts of à Âomà ¼a and Augustów and that they would henceforth be incorporated provinces of the Russian Empire. From November 1863, the Russians carried out mass arrests and confiscations of Polish property, and many insurgents escaped from the country. Russians deported hundreds of Poles from the county to Katorga to Siberia, and à Âomà ¼a was one of the sites of Russian executions of Polish insurgents. At the place of the executions, Poles put up crosses several times, and the Russians removed them.
During World War I, the Russian administration was evacuated in June 1915, and the city was occupied by Germany from August 1915 until 1918. In 1916 the Poles finally erected a still preserved monument at the site of the Russian executions of Polish insurgents. In 1916âÂÂ1917, the Polish Legions were stationed in the city. In 1917âÂÂ1918, à Âomà ¼a was the location of a German internment camp for soldiers of the Polish Legions. In November 1918, Poland regained independence, and the occupying German forces opened fire on Poles who tried to liberate the city, but it was still reintegrated with the reborn Polish state.
During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919âÂÂ1921, the city was attacked by the Russians on 29 July 1920. On 4 August the Russian military took à Âomà ¼a. Polish forces defended the city until 15 August, when Polish Fourth Army of General Leonard Skierski attacked the 15th Army, led by Soviet General August Kork. The Polish army successfully took back control of à Âomà ¼a from Russian forces. The Russian army retreated eastward under pressure from the Polish forces.
In September 1939, during the joint Soviet and German invasion of Poland, à Âomà ¼a was largely destroyed by the Wehrmacht during the Battle of à Âomà ¼a, and then was briefly occupied by Germany. The Einsatzgruppe V entered à Âomà ¼a in mid-September to commit various crimes against Poles. Germans carried out searches of Polish offices, organizations, and Catholic institutions, including the bishop's seat and the Capuchin monastery, and banned preaching and the organization of meetings.
On 26 September 1939 a Soviet aircraft dropped anti-Polish propaganda leaflets, which stated that "Poles are not capable of self-governing their country," so "the Soviets come to take care of them out of mercy." Soon afterwards the city was turned over by the Germans to the Red Army, which entered on 29 September and was incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR. The Soviets established a local station of the NKVD, and the Polish population was subjected to various repressions. In January 1940, the Soviets changed several street names, even calling one 17 September Street, after the day of the Soviet invasion of Poland. At least 32 Poles from à Âomà ¼a were murdered by the Russians in the Katyn massacre in 1940. The Soviets carried out arrests of the Capuchin monks and expelled Benedictine nuns in mid-1940. According to Soviet data from September 1940, over 330 Polish families were deported from the district to the USSR. In 1941 the local Polish underground resistance movement was weakened when the Soviets arrested its commander. The Soviets held 2,128 people in the local prison as of 21 June 1941, the day before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and on 20âÂÂ21 June they carried out mass deportations of Poles to Russia. à Âomà ¼a remained under Soviet control until Operation Barbarossa.
In June 1941, at the onset of the Russian campaign à Âomà ¼a was captured by the Wehrmacht and used as a communications hub by the German forces. Hundreds of Poles, including those initially held in the local prison and local Polish intelligentsia, were murdered in large massacres in nearby villages of Sà Âawiec, Jeziorko and Pniewo in 1942âÂÂ1943. The Jewish population of à Âomà ¼a, which numbered 9,000 at the beginning of the war, was almost entirely wiped out, murdered at a nearby forest or sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp to be murdered there. Only a few dozen survived. Since 1943, the Sicherheitspolizei carried out deportations of Poles including teenage boys from the local prison to the Stutthof concentration camp.
The Red Army fought back and successfully captured à Âomà ¼a on 13 September 1944. Afterwards the city was restored to Poland.
Between 1946 and 1975, the oldest part of the city was rebuilt. New housing estates came into existence along with several industrial plants, among them à Âomà ¼a cotton and furniture factories and starch manufacturer PEPEES, as well as municipal thermal power station. The city transit system was also established during this time. By the beginning of the 1970s, the population had reached almost 30,000 inhabitants. It was the capital of the à Âomà ¼a Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998.
References to Jewish residents in à Âomà ¼a () date to 1494. The population numbers date back only to 1808, when 157 Jews were officially counted. A magnificent stone synagogue was built there in 1881 on the initiative of Rabbi Eliezer-Simcha Rabinowicz. The Great Synagogue designed by Enrico Marconi became a centre of the Zionist movement. The Lomza Yeshiva attracted hundreds of Orthodox Jewish students, founded in 1883. In 1931, there were 8,912 Jews who lived in the city.
World War I was especially hard on the Jewish community of à Âomà ¼a, which was a major battle area against German military forces. In 1915, the Jewish Aid Society estimated that 22,000 Jewish residents of à Âomà ¼a were made homeless from the war.
On 29 October 1941 German troops forced over 1,000 Jewish residents of à Âomà ¼a to kneel in trenches, and they murdered them all with machine guns. They continued murdering entire families.
On 12 August 1941, a à Âomà ¼a Ghetto was created in the vicinity of the Old Market Square (Stary Rynek). The Nazi Einsatzkommando under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper committed mass killings of alleged Soviet collaborators a few days later. The number of Jews herded into the à Âomà ¼a Ghetto from surrounding villages and towns including Jedwabne, Stawiski, Piàtnica, Rotki, Wizna, à Âomà ¼a, and others, ranged from 10,000 to 18,000. Over two-thousand people were murdered in the Gieà Âczyn Forest outside of town. Many Jews perished from malnutrition and diseases such as dysentery and typhus. The rest were shipped to Auschwitz. The à Âomà ¼a synagogue was destroyed. The ghetto was liquidated in the final deportation action on 1 November 1942. Only a small number of the Jews of à Âomà ¼a survived the Holocaust; some found refuge with Catholic Polish families.
At the end of 1944, the Red Army recaptured the territory. Following the Yalta Conference, the Soviets ceded the city to Poland, with its total population reduced to 12,500 inhabitants, none of whom were Jewish.
One of the only visible remnants of the city's Jewish history is the Jewish cemetery. In 1999, the à Âomà ¼a Jewish Cemetery Foundation was officially founded as a charity devoted to restoring the cemetery, showing respect to the deceased buried there, and to improve relations between Poles and Jews. à Âomà ¼a declared the Jewish cemetery to be historical sites, and the city erected signed warning that any damage caused would be punishable under the Historical Site Preservation Law. The city also decided to install doors and replace the roof on one of the original cemetery's buildings.
In the 1997, a Torah was discovered that had been hidden in a home in à Âomà ¼a since World War II. The Torah was discovered while the home was being razed to build new housing. The Torah was bought by Gerald C. Bender, a man living in Illinois in the United States whose father had been born and raised in à Âomà ¼a. Bender bought the Torah in order to donate it to a synagogue.
<div style="float:right"> </div> à Âomà ¼a is the third largest city in Podlaskie Voivodeship with 62,019 inhabitants as of 2021.
General population in blue. Number of Poles of Jewish faith in green. Source: Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel.
The inhabitants of à Âomà ¼a are predominantly Roman Catholic, although over the centuries in addition to the Catholics, followers of other religions have settled there. There is evidence of many Jewish and Protestant gravestones at the à Âomà ¼a cemeteries, particularly the two abandoned Jewish cemeteries.
The history of education in à Âomà ¼a dates back to the early 15th century, when the first parish was founded. In 1614, Jesuits residing in à Âomà ¼a created a Collegium (present-day I Liceum Ogólnoksztaà Âcàce im. Tadeusza Koà Âciuszki). One of its rectors was Andrew Bobola. The educational level has not decreased after the KEN school pijarom in 1774. à Âomà ¼a has educated a number of dignitaries, among others: Szymon Konarski, Rafaà  Krajewski, Jakub Ignacy Weight, Wojciech Szweykowski, and Adam ChÃÂtnik.
Currently in à Âomà ¼a there is a well-developed network of public and private schools at all levels. There are seven primary schools, eight schools, ten secondary schools, six universities (including three non-public) and two schools of art. The educational level in à Âomà ¼a is high, based on the results of the exams and countrywide lists. For example, I Liceum Ogólnoksztaà Âcàce rates as a top national and central Poland school.
The economy of à Âomà ¼a is closely connected to its natural environment, with agricultural and forestry industries at the forefront of the region's economic development. The economy is ecologically friendly, including the food industries, brewing, electronics, the manufacture of building materials and furniture, the production and processing of agricultural crops, as well as tourism and agro-tourism. Even the largest companies employ less than 1,000 workers, even though a number of firms are listed on the Podlaskie Top One Hundred Entrepreneurs. Among them, the à Âomà ¼a Brewery (large-scale producer of beer), DOMEL (producer of unleaded windows), FARGOTEX (importer of upholstery fabrics), Konrad (importer of farm animals), à Âomà ¼a furniture factory (à Âomà ¼yà Âska Fabryka Mebli), PEPEES (producer of potato starch), Purzeczko (the personal and property protection). On top of that, the city is a registered office of the Podlaskie Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture.
By the end of 2007, the number of people steadily employed in à Âomà ¼a was 13,408, including 7,170 women, however, the unemployment rate () remained considerably high at 14.1 percent. The number of businesses registered by the end of 2008 was 6,421 of which 6,280 belonged to the private sector.
The history of sport in à Âomà ¼a dates back to the end of the 19th century, when the first amateur races were held in 1897. Two years later, à Âomà ¼a Rowing Society was established, and initiated its activities on 26 January 1902.
The first football club was founded on 16 April 1926, currently known as à ÂKS à Âomà ¼a. It is the city's most successful football club, having played on the Polish second tier in the 1930s, 1940s, and 2000s.
There are several sports clubs in town including volleyball, basketball, athletics, and martial arts. The inhabitants of the town have been the most successful in athletics, sports fighting and bodybuilding. Sports in à Âomà ¼a are supported by the Society for Promoting Physical Culture and the à Âomà ¼a School Sports Association. In 1998, an indoor sports arena opened for national and international sporting events, including indoor football matches and martial arts tournaments.
In 2009, a contract was signed for the construction of a municipal swimming pool to open in 2011, which is the second such facility in the city.
The S61 expressway bypasses à Âomà ¼a to the west https://www.gov.pl/web/infrastruktura/obwodnica-lomzy-w-calosci-oddana-do-ruchu. Exits 6 and 5 of the expressway provide for quick access to Suwaà Âki and to Warsaw to the south-west.
The railway connection to Biaà Âystok was withdrawn in 1993 https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/agreement-to-restore-lomza-bialystok-rail-route/. This left à Âomà ¼a as one of the biggest cities in Poland without access to a passenger railway.
Work is underway to re-build the entire railway line to à Âomà ¼a and to link it to a new 1 km junction at à Âniadowo to allow for direct passenger trains to/from Biaà Âystok and Warsaw. https://www.railtech.com/infrastructure/2020/11/23/passenger-trains-to-return-on-polish-railway-line-after-30-years/?gdpr=accept. In addition to this work is the construction of a new railway station in à Âomà ¼a. The new 77 km railway line together with new or modernised stations in à Âomà ¼a, Konarzyce, Koziki, Czachy-Koà Âaki, Kulesze Koà Âcielne, Sokoà Ây and à Âniadowo should be in operation by the end of 2026. https://railmarket.com/news/passenger-rail/39539-long-distance-trains-return-to-small-towns-in-poland-with-new-pkp-intercity-hybrid-fleet
Up to 19 coaches a day operated by Flixbus / Polski Bus make the 2 hour journeys to Biaà Âystok and Warsaw. https://www.omio.com/buses/lomza/warsaw-ijmn3
The closest international airport to à Âomà ¼a is Warsaw Modlin (WMI) (approx. 125 km), while Warsaw Chopin (WAW) (approx. 134 km) is the primary major hub.