Krajenka (german: Krojanke) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in the

Greater Poland Voivodeship Greater Poland Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo wielkopolskie; ), also known as Wielkopolska Voivodeship, Wielkopolska Province, or Greater Poland Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 o ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. It has 3,804 inhabitants (2005) and lies in

Złotów County __NOTOC__ Złotów County ( pl, powiat złotowski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central Poland. Its administrative seat and largest town is Złotów, which lies north of ...

Geographical location

Krajenka is located approximately 15 kilometers south of

Złotów Złotów (german: Flatow) is a town in northwestern Poland, with a population of 18,303 inhabitants (2011). Today it is part of Greater Poland Voivodeship (province), previously being in Piła Voivodeship (1975–1998). Since 1999 Złotów has b ...

, 50 kilometers south-east of

Szczecinek Szczecinek ( ; German until 1945: ''Neustettin'') is a historic city in Middle Pomerania, northwestern Poland, with a population of more than 40,000 (2011). Formerly in the Koszalin Voivodeship (1950–1998), it has been the capital of Szczecinek ...

and 160 kilometers east of the regional center,

Szczecin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

. It is located on the river, a tributary of the

Gwda The Gwda (; german: Küddow) is a river in Poland, a tributary of the Noteć. It has a length of and a basin area of . It begins at Lake Studnica, northeast of Szczecinek. Its upper course flows through many lakes. It runs through the town of Pi ...

river. It is part of the ethnographic region of

Krajna Krajna is a forested historical region in Poland, situated in the border area between the Greater Poland, Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Pomeranian Voivodeships. The region consists of parts of Złotów, Piła, Sępólno, Nakło, Bydgoszcz and Czł ...

, located in the northern part of the historic

Greater Poland Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed ...

region.

History

The first mention of the town is from 1286, back then it belonged to noble family of Danaborski whose Coat of Arms was Toporczyk. The name of the town itself comes from the Polish word Krajna, which meant in the past a location on the borders of Polish state. Throughout centuries it was connected to Polish royalty and such families as Danaborski, Dahlke, Kościelecki, Grudziński,

Działyński The House of Działyński was a Polish noble family whose name comes from their original place of settlement, Działyń in Dobrzyń Land. They used the Ogończyk coat of arms. History The original head of the family was Piotr from Działyń (died ...

Sułkowski Sułkowski (feminine: Sułkowska) is a Polish-language surname associated with the Polish noble Sułkowski family. Russified version: Sulkovsky. Notable people with this surname include: * Alexander Joseph Sulkowski (1695–1762), a Saxon-Polish ...

, Komierowski.

Magdeburg city rights Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within c ...

were granted in 1420 by the Polish king

Władysław Jagiełło Władysław is a Polish given male name, cognate with Vladislav. The feminine form is Władysława, archaic forms are Włodzisław (male) and Włodzisława (female), and Wladislaw is a variation. These names may refer to: Famous people Mononym * W ...

. Following the First Partition of Poland, in 1772 it was annexed by

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

. In 1787 the city suffered a fire. After the last Polish owner of the town was killed by the Prussians in 1809, the town was confiscated by Prussian officials and passed from Polish to German hands. In 1846 a Protestant church was built by the famous German architect Carl Friedrich Schinkel. In 1871 a railway station of the

Prussian Eastern Railway The Prussian Eastern Railway (german: Preußische Ostbahn) was a railway in the Kingdom of Prussia and later Germany until 1918. Its main route, approximately long, connected the capital, Berlin, with the cities of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) ...

was built south of the river. The town was then the property of

Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia (german: Joachim Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Leopold; 14 November 1865 – 13 September 1931) was a son of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia and Princess Maria Anna of Anhalt-Dessau, married in 1854. Family ...

. According to the German census of 1890, the town had a population of 3,344, of which 400 (12%) were

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...

. Despite the policy of

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...

, local

in the early 20th century founded the People's Bank and a Polish Catholic Society. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the Polish inhabitants made efforts to reintegrate the town with Poland, but despite their requests and protests, the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

granted the town to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Then it was made part of the province of

Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen The Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia (german: Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen, pl, Marchia Graniczna Poznańsko-Zachodniopruska) was a province of Prussia from 1922 to 1938. Posen-West Prussia was established in 1922 as a province of the Free ...

. On 21 June 1924, the town made history within German law as the

Reichsgericht The Reichsgericht (, ''Reich Court'') was the supreme criminal and civil court in the German Reich from 1879 to 1945. It was based in Leipzig, Germany. The Supreme Court was established when the Reichsjustizgesetze (Imperial Justice Laws) came in ...

confirmed private ownership by Prinz Friedrich Leopold, including, where he died in 1931. In 1931, local Poles founded a Polish school. Its teacher, Franciszek Gliszewski, was arrested and murdered by the Germans in the

Flossenbürg concentration camp Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of F ...

after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1939. On 30 January 1945 the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

occupied the abandoned and severely destroyed town during the final stages of

. Many of the inhabitants had fled during the winter of 1944/1945. After the war the town was finally reintegrated with Poland under the

Potsdam Agreement The Potsdam Agreement (german: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union on 1 August 1945. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned th ...

Number of inhabitants by year

Note that the table is based on primary, possibly inaccurate or biased sources.

Johann Friedrich Goldbeck Johann Friedrich Goldbeck (22 September 1748 – 9 April 1812) was a German geographer and Protestantism, Protestant theologian. Goldbeck was born in Tschernjachowsk, Insterburg, East Prussia. He first visited the Latin school in his home town In ...

: ''Volständige Topographie des Königreichs Preußen''. Part II: ''Topographie von West-Preußen''. Marienwerder 1789
p. 102, paragraph 8
Michael Rademacher:

(2006).August Eduard Preuß: ''Preußische Landes- und Volkskunde''. Königsberg 1835
p. 378.
/ref>F. W. F. Schmitt: ''Topographie des Flatower Kreises''. In: ''Preußische Provinzialblätter'', Andere Folge, Band VII, Königsberg 1855
pp. 115-116.
/ref>

Notable people

* (1914-1939), Polish Catholic priest, murdered by the Germans during

Zarządzenie Zastępcze Nr KN-I.4102.54.2017.17 Wojewody Wielkopolskiego z dnia 12 grudnia 2017 r. w sprawie nadania ulicy 30 Stycznia położonej w miejscowości Krajenka nazwy ks. Antoniego Januszewskiego (in Polish)
/ref> *

Siggi Wilzig Siggi B. Wilzig, born Siegbert Wilzig (March 11, 1926 – January 7, 2003), was a survivor of concentration camps Auschwitz and Mauthausen who arrived in the U.S. in 1947 with little money and only a grade school education. By the time of his deat ...

(1926-2003), Auschwitz holocaust survivor, CEO of Wilshire Oil Compa

References

External links

Official website of Krajenka
* William Remus:

' (2008)
{{Pomerania Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Złotów County