Działdowo (pronounced [d͡ʑau̯ˈdɔvɔ]; German: Soldau, Prussian: Saldawa) is a town in northern Poland with 20,935 inhabitants as of December 2021, the capital of Działdowo County. As part of Masuria, it is situated in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Founded in the Middle Ages and granted town rights in 1344, the town features heritage sites in various styles, including Gothic, Baroque, Gothic Revival and Baroque Revival, a preserved medieval urban layout with a market square and a medieval castle.
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Gmina Działdowo is a rural gmina in Działdowo County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. Its seat is the town of Działdowo, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina.
The gmina covers an area of 272.77 square kilometres, and as of 2006 its total population is 9,481.
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Działdowo County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, northern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Działdowo, which lies 65 kilometres south of the regional capital Olsztyn. The only other town in the county is Lidzbark, lying 25 km west of Działdowo.
The county covers an area of 953.18 square kilometres. As of 2019 its total population is 65,288, out of which the population of Działdowo is 21,279, that of Lidzbark is 7,794, and the rural population is 36,215.
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The Soldau concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II was a concentration camp for Polish and Jewish prisoners. It was located in Działdowo, a town in north-eastern Poland, which after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 was annexed into the Province of East Prussia.
The camp was founded in the former Polish Army barracks by SS-Brigadeführer Otto Rasch with the approval of Reinhard Heydrich. The first prisoners were brought by the end of September 1939. They were the Polish Army defenders of the Modlin Fortress who were forced to capitulate due to lack of ammunition and food. The camp served different purposes throughout its existence. The Polish intelligentsia, priests and political prisoners were secretly executed there, in addition to 1,558 patients from all the psychiatric hospitals in the district. It also served as a transit center for deportations from East Prussia to the semi-colonial General Government, and for slave labour to the Reich. Originally intended to be temporary, for the initial 1,000 inmates, the camp soon became permanent and rezoned as an Arbeitserziehungslager for the civilians brought in from across the new German Zichenau. Some 10,000–13,000 prisoners died there, out of a total of 30,000. After the war, the International Tracing Service initially classified the camp as a Vernichtungslager, due to the sheer number of victims.
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Komorniki [kɔmɔrˈniki] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Działdowo, within Działdowo County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It is located in the historic region of Masuria.
During the German occupation of Poland, the Komorniki forest was the site of massacres of Poles from the Soldau concentration camp, committed by the occupiers from December 1939 to May 1940.
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Kisiny [kiˈɕinɨ] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Działdowo, within Działdowo County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It is located in Masuria.
It was founded in the 1340s. As of 1542, the population was solely Polish.
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It is particularly known as the location of the Soldau concentration camp during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. The town is a major railroad junction connecting the capital city of Warsaw with Gdańsk and Olsztyn to the north.
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