Extract from a book on the Tarnowski family
Tarnobrzeg Economy & Jews in 18th C
15 June 2009
15:12
The start of Austrian rule (from 1772) was a very hard time economically. The example of Dzikow shows the economic decline of small towns in the parts of Poland taken by the Austrians. There were already signs during the Confederation of Bar (1768-72) which sat for some time at the castle, then owned by the Marshal of the Confederation, Rafal Tarnowski. The confederates wanted to avoid a risky meeting with the Russian command and to live only off the town and surrounding villages, not hesitating to rob, which they did under the pretext of exacting dues. The Jews, whose gradual move to the town could be observed since the end of the 17th century, now began to grow in numbers very quickly. And the rebuilding of Dzikow after a great fire in 1783 under its former name Tarnobrzeg did not prevent it becoming strongly judaized. After a while Jan Jacek Tarnowski put into their hands leases for all the castle's income in the town, the inn at Miechocin, breweries, distilleries, butchers' shops, 13 shops in the town hall, and dozens of szynkow?? At the end of the 18th century they also monopolised the grain trade, so that there was then not a single Christian shop in the town. It was the same almost everywhere. The flood of Jews preceded the partitions (of 1772, 1793, 1795). The Austrian government even issued certain anti-Jewish regulations, but the landowners paralysed them because the Jews were convenient to them in many ways. A new wave of Jews came at the time of the Kosciuszko Uprising (1794) as they fled from other parts of the Republic. Jan Jacek Tarnowski was not in the least a special protector of the Jews, but it was simply that like his contemporaries he did not realise the harmful effects of the massive settlement of Jews. After that he did something else, which brought him honour. The government tried to influence the domain through local authorities (cyrkulow?) to set up German colonisation, introducing regulations to increase their arrival (or to increase its income?). Despite his difficult financial situation the lord of Dzikow opposed this and remained deaf even to propositions coming directly from the central government. At the end of his life he began to colonise, establishing settlements in the woods but settling them from neighbouring Polish villages. In this way Rozalin and Tarnowska Wola were founded in 1802.Extract from a book on the Tarnowski family