''Puszcza Darżlubska'' () or ''Lasy Piaśnickie'' ( en, Darżlubska Wilderness or

Darżlubie Darżlubie ( Kashubian ''Darżlëbié'', german: Darslub) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Puck, within Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately west of Puck and north-west of the regi ...

/ Piaśnica Forest), located in the northernmost part of

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 ...

, is a Polish forests complex on the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

, within the geographical region of ''Pobrzeże Kaszubskie''; on the south-side bordering the

Tricity Landscape Park Tricity Landscape Park (''Trójmiejski Park Krajobrazowy'') is a protected area in northern Poland ( Polish Landscape Park), established in 1979, and covering the area of . The Park lies within the Pomeranian Voivodeship, in Wejherowo County (Gmi ...

(''Trójmiejski Park Krajobrazowy'') from which it is separated by the Reda river. Inside Darżlubie Forest there are two

nature reserves A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...

( Polish protected areas). The wilderness is also the source of two rivers: Piaśnica and Gizdepka. The name of Puszcza Darżlubska comes from the nearby village of

in the administrative district of

Gmina Puck __NOTOC__ Gmina Puck is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. Its seat is the town of Puck, Poland, Puck, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina. The gmina covers a ...

, north of

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

. Puszcza Darżlubska is the second largest site of mass killings of Polish civilians in

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

(after

Stutthof Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig ( Gdańsk) in the territory of the Germ ...

) during

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 ...

, with up to 16,000 victims murdered on the site. Polish migrant worker families residing in Germany pre-war were the he largest group executed. Besides Poles and Kashubs, the victims included patients from mental health hospitals (including Germans), Czechs and Jews. see also
"Polish Prime Minister at the anniversary celebrations in Piaśnica"
, (paragraph 2, line 2) by

Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API t ...

The waves of

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

executions, known as the

Mass murders in Piaśnica Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

, of about 12,000–16,000 victims, were committed between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940 near the town of

Wielka Piaśnica Wielka Piaśnica is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Puck, within Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately west of Puck and north-west of the regional capital Gdańsk. World War II After ...

. With the total area of Puszcza Darżlubska includes two

protected landscape areas Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

called ''Darżlubskie Buki'' and ''Źródliska Czarnej Wody Nature Reserve''. The

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

of both is similar to that of the Tricity Landscape Park established in 1979. The dominant tree is European Beech (

Fagus sylvatica ''Fagus sylvatica'', the European beech or common beech is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae. Description ''Fagus sylvatica'' is a large tree, capable of reaching heights of up to tall and trunk diameter, though mor ...

) forming

thicket A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in the ...

s with pine and other

coniferous Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...

trees.

Geography

The area is covered mainly by coniferous forest in which the dominating tree is beech forming lowland groves. The beach is relatively young in the region. After the retreating glacier and the gradual warming of the climate around c.8,000 BC, the whole area was first covered by

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...

. Along with the rise of temperature, the flora of the tundra gave way to new forest

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s in which most prominent were birches (

Betula A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

), pines (

Pinus A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

) and hazel (

Corylus The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...

). The ecosystem of the

primeval forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

changed again with additional, warmer (

stenothermic A stenotherm (from Greek στενός ''stenos'' "narrow" and θέρμη ''therme'' "heat") is a species or living organism only capable of living or surviving within a narrow temperature range. This type of temperature specialization is often seen ...

) varieties entering the landscape, including aspen (

Populus tremula ''Populus tremula'' (commonly called aspen, common aspen, Eurasian aspen, European aspen, or quaking aspen) is a species of poplar native to cool temperate regions of Europe and Asia, from Iceland and the British IslesJames KilkellIrish native ...

), elm tree (

Ulmus Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nor ...

), oak (

Quercus An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably '' ...

) and ash tree (

Fraxinus ''Fraxinus'' (), common name, commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of Subtropics, subtropic ...

). In spite of the scarcity of tourist trails, Puszcza Darżlubska, is also a good recreational area with many natural, historical and cultural artifacts and various points of interest for the visitors.

The killing ground

The waves of

executions, known as the

, of about 12,000–16,000 hostages (mostly members of Polish migrant workers families residing in interwar Germany and members of Polish

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

), were committed between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940 near the town of

. There are various commemoration sites in the forest, at 26 mass graves of victims and elsewhere.LET US NOT FORGET ABOUT GRAVES OF PIAŚNICA MASSACRE VICTIMS
Piaśnica museum, 26 October 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puszcza Darzlubska Forests of Poland Holocaust locations in Poland Nazi war crimes in Poland

Geography

The killing ground

See also

References