Rajsko, Oświęcim County


Rajsko is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Oświęcim and west of the regional capital Kraków.
The village has a population of 1,440.

History

The village was first mentioned in 1272 as Raysko in a Latin document when the village was bestowed by Władysław of Opole on Herman Surnagel in order to bring the settlement under German law.
It belonged at that time to the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz and the Castellany of Oświęcim. Subsequently during the process of the feudal fragmentation of Poland it was absorbed in 1315 into the Duchy of Oświęcim, ruled by a branch of the Silesian Piast dynasty. In 1327 the duchy became a fee of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1457 Jan IV of Oświęcim agreed to sell the duchy to the Polish Crown, and in the accompanying document, issued on 21 February, the village was again mentioned as Raysko.
The territory of the Duchy of Oświęcim was eventually incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland in 1564 and was part of the Silesian County of Kraków Voivodeship. With the First Partition of Poland in 1772 it was annexed by the Austrian Kingdom of Galicia.
After World War I and the fall of Austria-Hungary it became part of Poland. It was annexed by Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II. During the Nazi German control of the region, a subcamp of Auschwitz III was located there. After World War II, control was restored to Poland.

People associated with the village