Hotel Herz um 1910

In this picture we can see the Hotel Herz and the statue at the square's centre. The statue is showing Saint John Nepomucene which doesn't exist anymore. It was removed during the German occupation when the Germans built a huge air raid shelter in the middle of the market square. The air raid shelter was only removed in 2009, after the war a shopping center was opened in the air raid shelter. Hotel Herz was during the interwar period the center of cultural and political life in Oświęcim where balls and charity events took place but also political meetings and lectures. 

Oświęcim is today a 40,000 peoples town located in the Soła river valley. Therefore it has always been an important location for trading routes (especially salt route). 

Oświęcim's history starts in the 11th century with a settlement on the castle hill and around the year 1272 the town received municipal rights which were confirmed by the duke of Cieszyn, Mieszko I, on 3rd September 1291. In 1457 the Duchy of Oświęcim was incorporated into the Polish Crown. Half a century later, a huge fire destroyed the castle and it was rebuilt in 1534. On the 2nd half of the 16th century, the first settlement of Jews appeared in the town and a Jewish community was formed with a synagogue and a cemetery. The Jewish inhabitants called their town Oshpitzin, taken from the Hebrew word for "guests".

The town was invaded by the Swedes in 1655 and  was inhabited by no more than 200 people until the 18th century. With the first partition of Poland in 1772, Oświęcim belonged to Galicia and was under the rule of the Austrian Empire until Poland regained independence in 1918.

Before the 2nd World War about 14,000 people lived in Oświęcim and more than half of the population were Jews (around 60%). The relations between the inhabitants were mostly peaceful, also some anti-Semitic incidents occurred in 1918 and in the 1930s. In the town were around 20 synagogues and prayer houses.

During the 2nd World War Oświęcim was under German occupation and the town was annexed in the German Reich. Oświęcim was renamed Auschwitz and in spring 1940 the Germans established the Auschwitz concentration camp - firstly for Polish political prisoners, since 1942 the place served as the site of mass extermination of the European Jews. In 1941 all Jewish inhabitants of Oświęcim were deported to nearby ghettos in Będzin, Charnów and Sosnowiec and most of them were murdered later in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

On 27th January 1945 Oświęcim and the concentration camp were liberated from German occupation. In 1947 at the site of the former camp, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim was founded.

After the 2nd World War only a few Jewish inhabitants could return to the town - most of them were murdered in the Holocaust. In the year 2000 the last Jewish inhabitant, Szymon Kluger, died. Today there is no Jewish community in Oświęcim.