Pilica

Pilica is a historic town of 1,900 people (2019) in southern Poland, north of Kraków in the Polish Jura mountains. The place is best known for its medieval old town. There is a beautiful castle ruin there.

Understand

Smoleń Castle

Pilica gained rights as a town in 1393.

In 1905 Pilica Became a famous centre of Hasidism. After a famous tzaddik from Góra Kalwaria died – Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter – a considerable number of Hasidim started to go on pilgrimages to the rabbi’s brother-in-law, Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Justman author of Siftei Tzadik.

By 1921, the majority of the town's residents were Jewish. The town was occupied by the German army in September 1939. 2,000 Jews were kept imprisoned in a ghetto. In 1942, all the Jews were transferred first to the Wolbrom ghetto, and then to the concentration camps. Today, no Jews live in Pilica.

Get in

It is on the road between Częstochowa and Krakow ,about halfway between them.

See

The Pilica Castle

• 1 Pilica Castle. Built by Casimir the Great in the 14th century. It was destroyed in 1655 by the Swedish. (updated Feb 2022)
• A historic 17th-century castle with a park and defensive walls
• Church of St. John the Baptist
• 2 Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Snow - Guardian of the Families (Sanktuarium Matki Bożej Śnieżnej).  
• Monastery of the Augustinians (in ruins)
• Church of St. George
• The historic wooden church of St. Apostles Peter and Paul on St. Peter, burnt at the end of World War II in 1945. The present church consists of a wooden altar, fence and belfry, and a brick sacristy, which was the only one that survived the fire in 1945.