Rumia (pronounce: Rumia.ogg, Cassubian: Rëmiô, German Rahmel) is a town, located in Eastern Pomerania region, north-western Poland, with some 43,000 inhabitants. It is a part of the Kashubian Tricity (Rumia, Reda, Wejherowo) and a suburb part of metropolitan area of Tricity. Situated in the Wejherowo County in Pomeranian Voivodship since 1999, previously in Gdansk Voivodship (1975-1998). Rumia is traditionally connected to Kashubia.

It is connected by well developed railway and highway connections to the Tricity, over 1 million agglomeration on the coast of Gdansk Bay.

History

The village of Rumia was first mentioned in 1224 when it was awarded by Swietopelk , duke of Eastern Pomerania to the Cistersian convent in Oliwa (today part of Gdansk). At this time the name of Rumia was applied also to the neighbourhoods of Janowo (=John's Place) and Biała Rzeka (=White River). Zagórze, Kazimierz and Łeżyce, which are today part of Rumia, originally were separate villages, and were joined with Rumia in 1934 to form Rumia Rural Commune. Rumia was a church property until the first partition of Poland, when it was confiscated by the Prussian government. In 1285 Mestwin II, duke of Pomerania stopped here to issue official documents.

The village of Rumia was since 1772 a part of the Prussian province of West Prussia, since 1870 in Imperial Germany until the end of the World War I, and was then located in the Pomeranian Voivodship of the newly restored Polish state. In late 1920s the nearby village of Gdynia was turned into a city and one of the biggest seaports in the region. The city grew very fast and so grew the prices. Because of that many people settled in the village of Rumia and its vicinity.

By 1934 Rumia became an important suburb of Gdynia (population of 12 000 in 1939), located approximately 10 km. from the city centre and well-connected with it through a railway link. A small military airfield, home of two squadrons of the Coast Defence Escadrille (based in Puck) was opened to civilian planes on May 1, 1936, and by January 1 1939 a number of passengers using it rose to over 3000 a year. The airfield was also the main base of the Gdynia-based glider club.

During the September Campaign of 1939 Rumia was a site of heavy fights. It was a flanking position of the main Polish defence line at Kępa Oksywska . Two military cemeteries are located in the area. During the World War II the city was annexed by Germany to the province of Danzig-West Prussia.

The first of a series of war crimes happened on September 9, 1939 when the Wehrmacht shot 21 Polish POWs from the local self-defence units. Soon after taking the town, in September and October 1939 SS and SD units started a terror campaign. Exact number of victims is unknown, 'though various historians place the death toll at approximately 3 000. Most of them were either executed at a nearby place of mass executions in Piaśnica or sent to Stutthof concentration camp. Approximately half of the pre-war inhabitants of the town were expelled in 1940 and 1941, mostly to General Gouvernment. During the war Rumia was also a place of internment of several thousands of POWs, mostly from the United Kingdom, France and Italy. It was also a place of a forced labor camp and a plane assembly plant. In 1945, shortly before the liberation by the Red Army the local airfield was destroyed by an Royal Air Force bombing raid.

In 1945 the city was transferred back to Pomeranian Voivodship. It became a city in 1954 when a few other villages (Zagórze, Biała Rzeka, Szmelta and Janowo) were joined with Rumia. In 2001 also the village of Kazimierz was included.

Transportation

Rumia is well connected through 4 lane highway, that lead from Wejherowo to Gdynia and from there by Circular Highway to Gdansk. There is a plan to extend the Circular from Gdynia to beyond Wejherowo.

In Rumia there are 2 stops of the SKM (fast city railway), that connects Lębork-Wejherowo-Rumia-Gdynia-Sopot-Gdańsk-Tczew. The stops are called Rumia and Rumia-Janowo. There is also network of city buses that goes directly to Gdynia and Gdynia-Dabrowa.

Population

• 1960: 15,100 inhabitants
• 1970: 23,300 inhabitants
• 1975: 26,000 inhabitants
• 1980: 26,700 inhabitants
• 1990: 37,500 inhabitants
• 1995: 40,000 inhabitants
• 1998: 40,200 inhabitants
• 2003: 43,000 inhabitants
• 2004: 43,700 inhabitants

External link

• Official Rumia page (in Polish)