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Wola is a district of western Warsaw, Poland, formerly the village of Wielka Wola, that was incorporated into Warsaw in 1916. Mentioned in texts of the 14th century, it became the site of the free elections, from 1573 to 1764, of Poland's kings by the szlachta (nobility) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Wola district later became famous for the Polish Army's defence of Warsaw in 1794 during the Kościuszko Uprising and in 1831 during the November Uprising of 1830-1831. During the Warsaw Uprising (August-October 1944), Wola was the scene of fierce battles against Nazi German forces. It was there that, around August 8, 1944, the Germans perpetrated the largest single massacre of civilians (circa 40,000), including hospital patients, elderly, children and women (also those in pregnancy), during the Uprising. To quote Martin Gilbert, in his The Second World War: A Complete History, page 565, (see Google Books page view):
By August 5, more than fifteen thousand Polish civilians had been murdered by German troops in Warsaw. At 5:30 that evening, General von dem Bach Zelewski gave the order for the execution of women and children to stop. But the killing continued of all Polish men who were captured, without anyone bothering to find out whether they were insurgents or not. Nor did either the Cossacks or the criminals in the Kaminsky and Dirlewanger brigades pay any attention to von dem Bach Zelewski's order: by rape, murder, torture and fire, they made their way through the suburbs of Wola and Ochota, killing in three days of slaughter a further thirty thousand civilians, including hundreds of patients in each of the hospitals in their path.
Wola is an industrial area with traditions reaching back to the early 19th century.
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