Horse Market

Located in the Jewish district near the Great Synagogue - in the block bordered by Targowa, Narutowicza, Parczewskiego, and Przechodnia streets - this square served as a marketplace. Known as Rozmarkt, the market emerged in the late Middle Ages and grew in significance along with the development of the district. It ceased to function as a horse market in the 19th century. Since it was actually located closer to today's Narutowicza Street - i.e., in a slightly different place than where it is commemorated today - the market square disappeared during the interwar period due to residential development in that quarter.

(more information under the photos ↓)

Horese Market, pl. Rozmarek 1915-1916 rok. Source Muzea Wielkopolski, MOZK, autor Witold Wardęski.

Horese Market, pl. Rozmarek 1915-1916 rok. Source Muzea Wielkopolski, MOZK, autor Witold Wardęski.

Horese Market, Rozmarek Square after 1914. Source: Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna w Kaliszu.

Horese Market, Rozmarek Square, after 1914. Source: Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna w Kaliszu.

Horese Market, Rozmarek Square, after 1914. Source: Archiwum Państwowe w Kaliszu.

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Horese Market, Rozmarek Square, site plan 1923. Source: Archiwum Państwowe w Kaliszu.

It was a market square in the city center, situated in the former Jewish district. It was an integral part of everyday life, an important point in the city, and the main hub of the Jewish quarter. The Old Horse Market (in its original location) was connected by Targowa Street and what is now Narutowicza Street, formerly Ogrodowska, which appeared as Konna Street on an 1824 map, likely named after the Horse Market. After the 1792 fire, the Prussian authorities planned to build residential tenement houses on the site. These were indeed eventually constructed, though much later. The historical name of the square: Rozmarkt - Rosmark, and in modern times Rozmarek, was restored by the Kalisz City Council in 2011, naming a nearby square close to the original medieval site of the market. “Restoring the historical name Rozmarek to one of the most important places in the former Jewish district is a gesture of respect for over 800 years of coexistence between Poles and Jews and symbolizes the role and significance of this community in the city’s history,” the councillors stated. After archaeological excavations (which yielded valuable finds) and the area’s adaptation to a new function, Rozmarek was ceremonially reopened in 2014, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the tragic destruction and burning of Kalisz by Prussian forces during World War I.

The modern-day Rozmarek is a square developed several years ago, commemorating the existence of a significant Jewish trade center in the area, as well as the destruction of Kalisz in 1914 and its postwar reconstruction. In fact, the original market square was located slightly closer to present-day Narutowicza Street, while the area now known as Rozmarek was already redeveloped. In 1787, the city purchased the house numbered 255, located by the Horse Market on today’s Przechodnia Street, as a residence for the city executioner. By the end of the 19th century, the Horse Market, where, incidentally, horses were no longer traded, had become a traditional parking place for heavy freight wagons and, from 1905, for horse-drawn carriages. Restaurants and taverns were located in nearby buildings. The "masters of the whip" had a reputation for being hot-tempered and fond of drinking, making brawls at Rozmarek a common occurrence and police interventions frequent. In August 1914, the Horse Market and its surroundings were reduced to rubble. After World War I, the area was redeveloped. Today, Rozmarek borders a hotel building (which, until the 1990s, housed the local committee of the Polish United Workers' Party and later a bank). This party building was erected in the 1950s on the site where the synagogue and Bet Ha-Midrash school had stood before being demolished by the Germans during World War II. On the northern side, the square is bounded by a building that formerly housed a Jewish school - one of the few surviving public Jewish buildings in Kalisz. Poor Jewish boys were educated there in religion - the Talmud and Torah. The original school building, constructed in the late 19th century, was destroyed in the 1914 fire. It was rebuilt and expanded, and reopened in 1932. In addition to classrooms, it housed a prayer room, a well-equipped library, and a matzah bakery in the basement. During the war, the Gestapo had its headquarters there; after the war, the building housed the Security Service. Targowa Street, which today borders the square to the east (and whose name reflects the commercial nature of the area), reached only as far as the Horse Market until the mid-19th century, shorter than it is today. Przechodnia Street can be seen as marking the boundary between the former location of the Horse Market and the current location of Rozmarek. The name Rozmarek comes from a polonized version of the word Roßmarkt, which in Yiddish meant “horse market.” Since the “odor of the merchandise” was not particularly pleasant, people eventually began using the more appealing, though not entirely accurate, name Rosenmarkt, meaning “rose market.”

Author of the text:

Piotr Sobolewski

Project partners:

Archiwum Państwowe w Kaliszu

Muzeum Okręgowe Ziemi Kaliskiej

Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna w Kaliszu