Last modified: 2011-05-14 by andrew weeks
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![[Grabów nad Pilicą commune flag]](../images/p/pl-ma-gp.gif)
image by Chrystian Kretowicz, 10 Dec 2008
First mentioned in 1382.
After the third partition of Poland included in Austria-Hungary.
The Austrians maintained there a border and customs office.
The area was the site of fighting in 1863, 1914, 1939, 1944 and 1945.
There is a cemetery with 700 graves of German, Russian, Austrian and
Hungarian soldiers of WW I.
There is a monument to the locals who died fighting the Bolsheviks
in 1919-1920.
In July 1944 Marshal Rokossovsky's troops of the Ist Byelorussian Front
of the Red Army managed to cross the Bug River nearby and, with the help
of the local unit of AK (Home Army), established a strategically important
outpost (Przyczółek warecko-magnuszewski). At first, the Germans,
busy with the Warsaw Uprising, didn't offer much of the resistance, but,
after realizing the importance of this outpost, attacked with full force
of the 'Herman Göring' and 19th Panzer Divisions. The Soviets were
barely holding off the Nazi assault until the Polish Tank Brigade of "The
Heroes of Westerplatte" came to the rescue and Polish tanks and Soviet
infantry pushed the Germans all the way to Warsaw. In the tank battles
Grabów and surrounding villages suffered the destruction of 95% of infrastructure.
Although the Red Army and Polish troops reached the right bank of the Vistula
River in that push, Stalin made the premeditated decision to halt the
offensive to give Hitler an opportunity to crash the Warsaw Uprising,
hence eliminating the symbol of Polish nationhood and any significant resistance
to the Soviet takeover of Poland. Even personal letters of Franklin D.Roosevelt
begging Stalin to allow the American and Allied airplanes to land on the
Soviet-held territory for re-fueling, combined with the promises of additional
help from the U.S., didn't help to change Stalin's vicious mind.
In January 1945, from that area, the final Soviet offensive was launched,
taking ruined Warsaw in few days time and going all the way to Berlin and
Elbe River.
It is estimated that if the Rokossovsky's offensive wouldn't be halted
in September 1944 for political reasons, the war in Europe could be shortened
by at least four months and the carnage in Warsaw wouldn't be so horrible
( 250 000 dead, which combined with the annihilation of Warsaw's Jewry,
casualties from the defense of the city in 1939 and victims of the mass
executions during the Nazi occupation, bring the total to the staggering
number of 800 000 and wiping out the major European city from the face
of the Earth.
Arms and flag adopted on January 26, 2008 (resolution # XIV/71/08).
"Arms: on a green shield a silver, wavy ribbon at the base (symbolizing
the Pilica River) and a golden hornbeam tree (in Polish, 'hornbeam' (Carpinus)
means 'grab', hence the name of the village and the commune).
Flag: a rectangle in the ratio 5:8 composed of three vertical bands
in proportions of 1:2:1 and in colors of: green-yellow-green where the
yellow band is wide and bears the commune's Arms.
The color green corresponds to both, agricultural and forested character
of the commune.
There is also a banner in use.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 10 Dec 2008
![[Grabów nad Pilicą banner]](../images/p/pl-ma0gp.gif)
image by Chrystian Kretowicz, 10 Dec 2008
![[Grabów nad Pilicą Coat of Arms]](../images/p/pl-ma)gp.gif)
image by Chrystian Kretowicz, 10 Dec 2008