and remained in the city until 6 May 1915 (see Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive). In the early stages of the offensive, Tarnów was shelled by German-Austrian heavy artillery, which brought destruction to some of its districts. Second Polish Republic Tarnów was one of the first Polish cities to be freed during the rebirth of Poland following World War I. The Polish Legions liberated the city on the night of 30–31 October 1918. In the Second Polish Republic, Tarnów belonged to Kraków Voivodeship, and gave the newly established country many outstanding figures, such as Franciszek Latinik and Wincenty Witos. In early 1927, construction of a large chemical plant was initiated in the suburban village of , which is now a part of the industrial borough of Mościce, a district of the city. Before the outbreak of World War II, the population of Tarnów was 40,000, of which almost half were Jewish. On 28 August 1939, a German Nazi saboteur conducted the Tarnów rail station bomb attack killing 20 civilians and wounding 35, four days before the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the outbreak of World War II. World War II During the German invasion of Poland, the city was overrun by the German forces on 7 September 1939. Under German occupation, Tarnów was incorporated into the General Government territory as the seat of the Kreishauptmanschaft Tarnow administrative unit in the Kraków District on 26 October 1939. In September 1939, the Einsatzgruppe I entered the city to commit atrocities against Poles, and the Einsatzgruppe zbV entered to take over the Polish industry. Poles expelled in December 1939 from various places in German-annexed western Poland were deported in freight trains to Tarnów. On 14 June 1940, the first mass transport left the Tarnów station to Auschwitz concentration camp, with 728 Polish political prisoners, including at least 67 underage boys. All throughout the German occupation of Poland Tarnów was an important center of the Armia Krajowa (AK) and other resistance organizations. In mid-1944 AK's 16th Infantry Regiment "Barbara" took part in Operation Tempest. After the Warsaw Uprising, in October 1944, the Germans deported 3,000 Varsovians from the Dulag 121 camp in Pruszków, where they were initially imprisoned, to Tarnów. Those Poles were mainly old people, ill people and women with children. The Wehrmacht retreated from Tarnów on 18 January 1945, and the city was captured by the Red Army, and then restored to Poland.