Nowa SÃ Âupia is a town in Kielce County, Ã ÂwiÃÂtokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Nowa SÃ Âupia. It lies approximately east of the regional capital Kielce.
Nowa Sà Âupia, which in the past was known as Sà Âup and Sà Âupia Nowa, has a long and rich history, and used to be a town from 1351 to 1869. The village is located in the Swietokrzyskie Mountains, at the foothills of à Âysa Góra, the second highest peak of the mountains. Nowa Sà Âupia borders Swietokrzyski National Park. The village, which is a junction of three regional roads (751th, 753rd and 756th), is a starting point of several tourist trails.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, Nowa Sà Âupia belonged to the à ÂwiÃÂty Krzyà ¼ Benedictine Abbey, and at that time the village was called Sà Âup. In 1351, due to efforts of Benedictine abbots, King Casimir III the Great granted town charter to Slup. The new town's name was changed into Sà Âupia Nowa, to distinguish it from the nearby village of Sà Âupia, which now is called Stara Sà Âupia. Sà Âupia Nowa developed as a center of services for pilgrims, who headed to à ÂwiÃÂty Krzyà ¼. Among the pilgrims, was King Wà Âadysà Âaw II Jagieà Âà Âo. In 1405, Sà Âupia received a privilege for weekly fairs. The town prospered in the period known as Polish Golden Age, and in 1578 it had 21 workshops with a mill. The town was administratively located in the Sandomierz Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province.
Following the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland, the town then briefly belonged to the Habsburg Empire. After the Polish victory in the Austro-Polish War of 1809, it became part of the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, and after the duchy's dissolution, it was part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland from 1815 to 1915. In 1819, the à ÂwiÃÂty Krzyà ¼ Abbey was closed, which resulted in decline of the town. In 1869, following the January Uprising, Nowa Sà Âupia was reduced to the status of a village, together with several other locations in northern Lesser Poland. Before World War II, the village had a population of 3,350, and was part of Kielce Voivodeship. In 1929, almost the whole village burned in a fire. During the war, Nowa Sà Âupia was an important center of the Home Army and other anti-German organizations. In July 1943, Germans pacified the village, murdering 200 residents.
Jews first came to Nowa Sà Âupia at the end of the 18th century. A wooden synagogue was built in the town in 1858 and soon after Rabbi Efroim Hercyk served as the town's first rabbi. He was the first cousin of Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter (founder of Ger Hasidism) and brought Ger Hasidism to Nowa Sà Âupia. In the 1920s, Rabbi Wolf Dawid Dychwald became the town's rabbi and introduced the Mizrachi movement to the town. In 1929 the town's synagogue burnt down and a new one was built in 1931. The Nowa Sà Âupia Jewish community served as a hub for Jews in DÃÂbno, Jeziorko, Hucisko, Sosnówka, Wólka and Mirocice. Most of the Jews in the town made their living through craft, trade and agriculture and Jews were allowed to participate in Polish guilds. The community had an organized management committee.
During World War II, the German occupiers operated a forced labour camp for Jews in the town. During the Holocaust, the entirety of the town's Jewish population was murdered by the German occupiers.
The à ÂwiÃÂty Krzyà ¼ Monastery, a Historic Monument of Poland, is located in Nowa Sà Âupia.
Currently, Nowa Sà Âupia is a tourist center, with Mieczyslaw Radwan Museum of Old-Polish Steel Mills, opened in 1960. Every year, a festival called Dymarki Swietokrzyskie (Holy Cross Bloomeries) is organized here in mid-August, at an open-air museum, Archeological â and Cultural Center. One of major local points of interest is the so-called Stone Pilgrim (Kamienny pielgrzym), a stone figure of a kneeling man, located near main entrance to the National Park. According to a legend, the figure once was a vain knight, who went on a pilgrimage to the abbey. Upon hearing the sound of the bells, he stated that they tolled in his honor, for which he was punished and turned into stone. The figure moves towards the summit at a pace of one grain of sand a year, and it will reach the top at the end of the world. Nowa Sà Âupia also has the St. Lawrence parish church (1678).