Turek
Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Flag of Turek
Flag
Coat of arms of Turek
Coat of arms
Motto(s): 
Turek zawsze po drodze / Miasto silne jak tur
Turek always on your way / City strong as an aurochs
Turek is located in Poland
Turek
Turek
Coordinates: 52°1′N 18°30′E / 52.017°N 18.500°E / 52.017; 18.500
Country Poland
VoivodeshipGreater Poland
CountyTurek
GminaTurek (urban gmina)
First mentioned1136
Town rights1341
Government
 • MayorRomuald Antosik
Area
 • Total16.16 km2 (6.24 sq mi)
Elevation
113 m (371 ft)
Population
 (2009)
 • Total31,282
 • Density1,900/km2 (5,000/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code
62-700
Area code+48 63
Vehicle registrationPTU
Websitehttps://www.miastoturek.pl/

Turek [ˈturɛk] is a town in central Poland with 31,282 inhabitants as of 2009. It is the capital of Turek County in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It is located in the Sieradz Land.

History

Interior of the Jesus Holiest Heart church, designed by Józef Mehoffer

Turek is first mentioned in the historical record 1136, when it was listed as belonging to the archbishops of Gniezno. It received its town rights in 1341.[1] It was a private church town, administratively located in the Sieradz County in the Sieradz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland.[2]

Turek was annexed by Prussia in 1793 in the Second Partition of Poland, regained by Poles and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, and included within so-called Congress Poland in 1815, soon forcibly integrated with the Russian Empire. It was then capital of a district within the Kalisz Governorate.[3] In 1826, Fryderyk Chopin travelled through the town.[4] During the January Uprising, it was the site of clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops on August 20 and December 28, 1863.[5] Following the end of the First World War in 1918, Turek became part of the Second Polish Republic as the country regained independence.

With the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Turek was occupied by the Wehrmacht and annexed by Nazi Germany. It was administered as part of the county or district (kreis) of Turek within newly formed province of Reichsgau Wartheland. The Polish population was subjected to expulsions, confiscation of property, deportations to Nazi concentration camps and murder (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). In autumn of 1939, the Einsatzgruppe VI carried out a number of executions of Poles at the local market.[6] Teachers from Turek were among Polish teachers murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp.[7] The first expulsion of 160 Poles was carried out in December 1939, and the expellees' shops, workshops and houses were then handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.[8] A transit camp for Poles expelled from the region was operated in the town.[9] During the German occupation, the nearly 3,000 Jews in Turek were brutalized, forced into an overcrowded ghetto in 1940, starved, and robbed of all their possessions. In 1941, some men were sent to forced labour camps near Poznań, but the majority of Turek's Jews were sent to a rural ghetto in Kowale Pańskie. In July 1942, most of them were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed immediately. Only around 30 Turek Jews survived the war.

With the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 and the end of the war, Turek was integrated into the People's Republic of Poland.

From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Konin Voivodeship.

Sports

The local football club is Tur Turek. It competes in the lower leagues.

International relations

Twin towns – sister cities

Turek is twinned with:

Notable people

Mehoffer's Bench

See also

References

  1. ↑ Megargee, Geoffrey (2012). Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. p. Volume II, 109–110. ISBN 978-0-253-35599-7.
  2. ↑ Atlas historyczny Polski. Województwo sieradzkie i województwo łęczyckie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku. Część I. Mapy, plany (in Polish). Warszawa: Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. 1998. p. 3.
  3. ↑ "Kalisz". In Encyclopædia Britannica. Volume 15, p. 642. Accessed via Google Books 10/6/11.
  4. ↑ Załuski, Pamela; Załuski, Iwo (2000). Szlakiem Chopina po Polsce (in Polish). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo JaR. p. 66. ISBN 83-88513-00-1.
  5. ↑ Zieliński, Stanisław (1913). Bitwy i potyczki 1863–1864. Na podstawie materyałów drukowanych i rękopiśmiennych Muzeum Narodowego w Rapperswilu (in Polish). Rapperswil: Fundusz Wydawniczy Muzeum Narodowego w Rapperswilu. pp. 209, 217.
  6. ↑ Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. p. 207.
  7. ↑ Wardzyńska (2009), p. 215
  8. ↑ Wardzyńska, Maria (2017). Wysiedlenia ludności polskiej z okupowanych ziem polskich włączonych do III Rzeszy w latach 1939-1945 (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. p. 182. ISBN 978-83-8098-174-4.
  9. ↑ Kostkiewicz, Janina (2020). "Niemiecka polityka eksterminacji i germanizacji polskich dzieci w czasie II wojny światowej". In Kostkiewicz, Janina (ed.). Zbrodnia bez kary... Eksterminacja i cierpienie polskich dzieci pod okupacją niemiecką (1939–1945) (in Polish). Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Biblioteka Jagiellońska. p. 60.
  10. ↑ Małgorzata Smogorzewska: Posłowie i senatorowie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1919–1939. Słownik biograficzny, tom I: A-D, Wydawnictwo Sejmowe Warszawa 1998
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