Sierpc

Memorial plaque at the place where the Germans murdered over 300 Poles in 1939-1942

During World War II from 1939 to 1945 Sierpc was under German occupation. It was then renamed to Sichelberg to remove traces of Polish origin The Germans established a prison for Poles in the town.[6] Dozens of local disabled people were murdered by the Germans in March 1940 in the nearby Troska forest.[7] On April 5, 1940 the Germans carried out mass arrests of about 600 Poles in the town and the county, who were then imprisoned in two local prisons.[8] Local priest Bronisław Kolator was among Polish priests murdered in the Soldau concentration camp (see Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland).[9] About 2,000 Poles were expelled from Sierpc in February 1940, and another 400 were expelled in December 1940.[10] People were first deported to the Soldau concentration camp and afterwards to the General Government in the more eastern part of German-occupied Poland, while their houses and workshops were handed over to German colonists in accordance to the Lebensraum policy.[10] A German forced labour camp was operated in the town.[11]

As part of the Holocaust, the Germans destroyed Sierpc's Jewish community. On 8 Nov 1939, the Jews of the town were deported to ghettoes from which they were eventually sent to Nazi concentration camps.[12] During the Holocaust, approximately five thousand Jews from Sierpc and its environs were murdered.[13] An organization of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Sierpc compiled a large compendium of testimony on Jewish life in Sierpc before the war, relationships between the Jewish and Polish communities in the town, and the horrors which the Jews of Sierpc suffered in the Holocaust.[14]

It is an open-air museum and is located in the suburbs of Sierpc in the valley of the Sierpienica River and its confluence with the Skrwa Prawa. Though it looks like a separate and independent village because of its great area (about 60.5 hectares) and because it is fenced, the museum is included within the town's borders. The village is made up of 11 farms (houses - cabins, barns, cowsheds, granaries, pigsties), an inn, a blacksmith's workshop, an oil - mill, a windmill, a manor house, a small chapel and a wooden church. Everything was collected from different regions of Masovia. The architecture of houses reminds that from 19th or early 20th century. Also inside the houses there are pieces of furniture, utensils, equipment and hand-made decorations which are appropriate to the epoch. Each season there are exhibitions devoted to traditional Masovian customs i.e. "Christmas in Mazovie Region", "Easter in Mazovie Region". Also children can find something interesting for them : "Palm Sunday in Skansen museum", "Sunday in Skansen museum", "Cooking in the middle of the glade", "Children's Day in Skansen museum", "Honey harvest in Skansen museum" or "Harvest season in Skansen museum".

A few movies have used the museum as a location. The most famous are: Pan Tadeusz, Ogniem i mieczem and Szwadron.

The church was built in the 16th century. At the beginning it was a chapel near a hospital. The church was built in the Gothic style and later rebuilt in Baroque style. A fire in 17th century destroyed the church completely and after second rebuilt it lost its original form. The most valuable relic, not only of church but of the town are pieces of paintings from the Middle Ages and a sculpture from the 16th century "Generosity's Throne" made by the pupils of Veit Stoss. Now it's in main altar.

The manor house was built at the turn of the 17th and 18th century and, undoubtedly, it is one of the most important monuments in the Sierpc area and the oldest architectonic laic object in the town. It is a timber house with a thatched roof. There are plenty of mysterious legends and stories about "Kasztelanka" and the adjoining Benedictine monastery which is connected to it via a corridor. The monastery is more massive and solid, indicating it may have had a defensive purpose, perhaps against a Swedish attack.