Biała Podlaska (Polish: [ˈbʲawa pɔdˈlaska] ⓘ; Latin: Alba Ducalis) is a city in the Lublin Voivodeship in eastern Poland with 56,498 inhabitants as of December 2021.

First recorded in the medieval period, Biała Podlaska is a former residential city of the once influential magnate Radziwiłł family, whose landmarks include a Palace and Park ensemble and Renaissance and Baroque churches.

It is the location of one of the oldest high schools in Poland, whose student was the most prolific Polish 19th-century writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, the birthplace of virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower, and a former aircraft manufacturing centre.

It was a place of Nazi German-perpetrated atrocities against Jews, Poles and Italians during the German occupation of Poland in World War II with over 4,000 victims.

The founder of the city may have been Piotr Janowicz, nicknamed "Biały" (Polish for "white"), who was the hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In 1670, Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł gives Biała Podlaska town rights and the coat of arms, which depicts archangel Michael standing on a dragon.

The last heir, Dominik Hieronim Radziwiłł, died on 11 November 1813 in France, as a colonel of the Polish army.

Following the Austro-Polish War of 1809, temporarily recovered by Poles, Biała Podlaska was part of the Polish Duchy of Warsaw.

At the end of the 19th century, Biała Podlaska was a large garrison town of the Imperial Russian Army.

Near the intersection of Brzeska Street and Aleje Tysiclecia Avenue is a cemetery for soldiers killed during World War I.

[10] In March and July 1940, the Germans imprisoned dozens of Poles in the local prison, and then massacred them in the nearby Grabarka forest.

[11] Over 40 Polish teachers were arrested in the town on 24 June 1940, imprisoned in Lublin and then deported to concentration camps, as part of the AB-Aktion.

[17] On 12 April 1944, the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, composed of Ukrainian nationalists collaborating with Germany, pacified the present-day district of Sielczyk, burning twelve houses and murdering nine Polish men and women.

[18] In 1944 the town was recaptured by Polish and Soviet troops and restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

A descendant of the Yid Hakodosh of Przysucha formed the Biala chasidic court, which survives to this day with communities in London, and cities in the United States and Israel.

The overcrowding and poor sanitations resulted in a typhus epidemic in Biała Podlaska in early 1940, causing many deaths.

[19] The Germans imprisoned some Poles in the local prison and then deported them to concentration camps for helping and rescuing Jews.

Hundreds were forced to pave roads, drain ditches, construct sewage lines and build barracks.

[19] After the launch of Operation Reinhard on 6 June 1942– the code name for the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland – the Jews were told to prepare for "resettlement".

[19][21] In September 1942, some 3,000 Jews from the neighbouring towns of Janów and Konstantynów were brought into Biała Podlaska Ghetto.

The subsequent "deportation actions" conducted by the Nazi German Reserve Police Battalion 101, augmented by the Ukrainian Trawnikis, lasted throughout October and November 1942.

In total, some 10,800 Jews from around Biała Podlaska and its county were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp, 125 kilometres (78 mi) away, or massacred on the spot during roundups.

[23] The remaining Jews of Biała Podlaska were sent to a transit point at the Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto for deportations to death camps.

[22] The Nazis left a small group of 300 Jewish slave labourers in Biała Podlaska to clean up the decaying ghetto area.

[26] The cemetery otherwise stands as a reminder of the hole that was ripped out of Biała Podlaska life by the Holocaust and loss of so many Jews.

Apart from Israel, Melbourne in Australia has the largest number of Jewish survivors from Biała Podlaska - all now very aged.

Plays are staged in the auditorium of the Pope John II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska and in amphitheater in Radziwiłł park.

Recreation facilities include also public spaces such as Radziwiłł Park and promenade at Plac Wolności (the Freedom Square).