Zawiercie ([zaˈvʲɛrt͡ɕɛ] ⓘ) (Yiddish: זאוויערטשע, romanized: Zavirtshe) is a town in southern Poland located in the Silesian Voivodeship with 49,334 inhabitants (2019).

[3] The town is a gateway to the Polish Jura, where several castles, which used to defend western border of Lesser Poland, are located.

In the 14th century, the village was located in western Lesser Poland, along a merchant road from Kraków to Poznań.

It was administratively located in the Lelów County in the Kraków Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown.

In 1795 Zawiercie was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Third Partition of Poland, becoming part of the small province of New Silesia.

In the 1807 Treaties of Tilsit it became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, a French client state in a personal union with the Kingdom of Saxony.

In 1894, Polish Socialist Party organized a mass sit-in at Zawiercie's Cotton Plant, and by 1914, the population of the village grew to 30,000.

The city had labor unions which were composed of small traders and artisans, as well as two banks, a charitable fund companies and charities.

The town was directly annexed to the Upper Silesia Province (Regierungsbezirk Oppeln), and its name was changed to Warthenau to erase traces of Polish origin.

The Germans established and operated a Nazi prison in the town,[5] and also began kidnapping Poles and Jews for forced labour and acts of abuse.

In autumn of 1939, the Polish secret resistance organization Płomień was established, with its headquarters in the local trade school.

[7] The organization issued underground Polish press, financially supported poorest families[6] and tried to save the youth from being deported to forced labour to Germany.

[8] On September 18, 1940, the Gestapo carried out mass arrests of over 100 members of the Płomień organization,[6] who were then either sentenced to death and executed or imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, where many died.

In the “Aktion” in Zawiercie in May or August 1942, SS, Gestapo and German gendarmes, aided by the Blue Police, deported about 2,000 residents of the ghetto to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

At the end of 1942 an underground group was formed in Zawiercie by the "Hashomer HaTzair" (Zionist Youth Movement) led by Berl Schwartz.

SS, Gestapo, German gendarmes, and Blue Police deported to Auschwitz 6,000–7,000 Jews as well as locals and refugees who were brought from other places.