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Mielec [ˈmʲɛlɛt͡s] ⓘ is the largest city and seat of Mielec County, located within the Subcarpathian Voivodeship in south-eastern Poland. The population of Mielec in December 2021 was 59,509.
Mielec is an industrial center, with technical and IT schools, craft schools and colleges (providing bachelor's degree and master's degree in several fields of study. Postgraduate studies are also available - e.g. MBA). The city lies within the Special Economic Zone Euro-Park Mielec with access to Mielec Airport and railway. About 15 km (9 mi) north of Mielec runs LHS railway - The transshipment terminal in Wola Baranowska enables the exchange of cargo between the broad gauge and standard gauge railways and trucks. About 20 km (12 mi) south of Mielec runs the A4 motorway. Moreover, the city of Mielec supports a recognizable football team, Stal Mielec, two times Polish Champions.
The motto of the city is Here wings spread! in reference to many successful domestic and foreign investments.
The first mention of a place called Mielec occurs in the thirteenth century in the 1229 bull of Pope Gregory IX. In the second half of the fourteenth century, "Mielecka" was mentioned in a list of parishes. The city of Mielec, part of Sandomierz Voivodeship and Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland, was founded on 17 March 1457, when King Casimir IV granted a charter to Jan Mielecki for the establishment of a city under the name of Nowy Targ. For unknown reasons Jan Mielecki did not go on to found the city; it was eventually established by his two sons, Jan and Bernardyn, by an Act of 18 December 1470. The Mielecki family owned the town of Mielec until the last of the Mieleckis died in 1771. Under their rule, there was intensive development of craft industries. In 1522, the first guild was founded. This was the blacksmiths' guild. It was followed by guilds of tailors, cobblers, potters, spinners, and weavers.
The next owners of Mielec were the Ossolinski and Morsztyn families. In 1775, Anna Ossilińska married Jan Pieniążek, bringing as a dowry her share of part of the city. The next owner was Ignacy Suchorzewski, who married Pieniążek's daughter Paulina. Suchorzewski sold Mielec's property to Ludwik Starzeński in 1847, who then disposed of it ten years later to a Jewish family named Gross. The last owner of Mielec was the Oborski family in 1891.
In 1853, the county town of Mielec governed an area in which there were 106 settlements and 91 castral municipalities. In 1892, on Kosciuszko Street a new City Council building and police barracks were built. The development of the county town was interrupted by a huge fire, which destroyed three quarters of the city. This catastrophe caused the city to apply for a state loan of 12 crowns, the receipt of which led to the rapid development of the city. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the market place in Mielec was surrounded by brick houses, and in 1902, a courthouse was built. In 1912, a gymnasium (or academic high school) and the office of County Council were established and buildings constructed to house them.
World War I caused much damage to the infrastructure and economy of city of Mielec and the county.
In the interwar years many streets were paved with cobbles. In addition, a private power plant, various craft workshops, and retail businesses were established. In 1934, the Mielec region suffered a huge flood that destroyed more than 11,000 households. The house and photographic studio of the early 20th-century Polish photographer August Jaderny was a meeting place of the local artistic community in the interbellum.
Mielec's economy has been based for the last 70 years around a single industrial enterprise, which transformed the city and increased its population sixfold. This process began in the 1930s, when Poland launched a significant expansion of its armaments industry, focused on building factories in the newly created Central Industrial Region (Polish: Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy, abbreviated COP). In 1936, a state-owned factory making airplane chassis was established (State Aviation Works - Airframe Fakcory No. 2) on the outskirts of the town, an area then known as Cyranka. The factory started to build a new bomber, the PZL P-37 or "Łoś" (English: "Moose"). Additionally, in the years 1937-1939 a large aviation factory belonging to the PZL company was set up. This new manufacturing industry necessitated the development of residential housing for factory workers and management personnel.
On the eve of World War II there were approximately 3,500 Jews living in Mielec, out of a total population of 7,000 (roughly 50%).
After the outbreak of World War II, the city fell into the hands of the German invaders. The period of German occupation lasted from 13 September 1939 to 6 August 1944 in Mielec.
One of the first things that the Germans did upon occupying the city was to burn down the Jewish synagogue, mikveh and kosher slaughterhouse, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest holidays, killing between 30 - 150 Jews who were in the buildings at the time. It is hard to find accurate numbers as many were visitors for the holiday and were not from Mielec.
The Polish underground resistance was quickly organized in Mielec, and already on 29 November 1939, it launched an attack on a German prison. The Polish resistance movement had important centers in the former house of photographer August Jaderny and in the house of the Dębicki family. On March 29, 1943, a Polish underground partisan unit Jędrusie and the Home Army successfully carried out a daring attack on a German prison and liberated about 180 prisoners.
In the years of 1939–1944, the airplane factory factory produced German bombers, and from 1943 also manufactured the fighter plane He–297. The Nazis staffed much of the factory with slave labour. Initially, Jews from Mielec were enslaved in this forced labor camp. In 1942, the Jewish population of Mielec was deported to death camps, except for a few who remained as slave labour at the factory. During the deportation, the factory hangars were the site of a mass murder of several hundred of Mielec's Jews, who were buried there. Subsequently, the factory used slave labour composed of Jews from other regions, prisoners of war, political prisoners, etc. The Gestapo used Jewish informants, the so-called V-leute in region to penetrate underground resistance and denounce hiding Jews; special barracks were set up in labour camp near Mielec for Jewish informers and their families, who were granted special privileges. These informants operated between 1942 and 1943 when they were finally executed by Gestapo themselves. A mass grave of Jews with a monument may be found in one corner of the Mielec Catholic cemetery, where the victims of a 1941 Nazi atrocity were buried. During the German occupation, all of Mielec's Jewish institutions and the Jewish cemetery were destroyed, and also many of the Jewish homes. Estimates on the number of Jewish survivors from Mielec are around 300, down from almost 3,000 six years prior. Of the 300 survivors, 183 returned to Mielec to try and live there, but found their homes taken over by Poles, and following a pogrom by their neighbors on August 25, 1946, they fled. By the end of 1946 only 20 Jews remained in Mielec.
After 1945, the factory became the largest aviation factory in Poland under the name WSK-Mielec "Wytwórnia Sprzętu Komunikacyjnego" (English: "Transport Equipment Manufacturing Centre"). This plant was the main source of employment for people in Mielec and surrounding communities. At first, the factory produced Soviet-designed planes under license. Thus, it was the primary production site of the widely used An-2 transport plane. It also manufactured Polish versions of the MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters. The factory also built planes designed in Poland such as the trainer plane TS-11 Iskra used by Poland and India. It produced over 16,000 aircraft, which were mainly licensed for export to the USSR.
After 1989 and the economic changes due to the fall of communism, factory orders declined and the plant encountered serious financial difficulties. It continued to produce successful aircraft types, but at much lower volumes than during the Cold War. Self-government of Mielec Township was established in 1990.
The situation changed in 1995, due to the establishment of Poland's first Special Economic Zone EURO-PARK Mielec. In 1998 the aviation plant changed its name to PZL-Mielec "Polskie Zakłady Lotnicze" (English: "Polish Aviation Works"). In 2007 the factory was acquired by Sikorsky (in 2015 Sikorsky was acquired by Lockheed Martin), and was planned to be the main production site of the export version UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Additionally, Mielec has been the production site of the sports-luxury car Leopard 6 Litre Roadster.
From the beginning of Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy, Mielec is commonly associated with PZL Mielec aviation factory.
The first Special Economic Zone in Poland, SEZ EURO-PARK MIELEC, has been founded in Mielec in 1995 and has a positive impact on the economy of Mielec. In 2020 Mielec is close to enlarging the zone of SEZ EURO-PARK MIELEC
Other products manufactured in the city:
Mielec has warm summers, cold winters and a wide but not extreme variation in temperature between seasons. In the Köppen climate classification, Mielec is on the border between a humid continental climate (Dfb) if the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm is used or an oceanic climate (Cfb) if the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm is used. There is rain or snow in all months of the year.
Elementary schools
High Schools and Vo-Tech Schools
Text from the Wikipedia article “Mielec”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.