Więcbork (; german: Vandsburg) is a town in northern

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 ...

, located in the

Sępólno County __NOTOC__ Sępólno County ( pl, powiat sępoleński) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish l ...

in the

Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, also known as Cuiavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship or simply Kujawsko-Pomorskie, or Kujawy-Pomerania Province ( pl, województwo kujawsko-pomorskie ) is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divide ...

. In 2019 it had a population of 5,965. It is located within the ethnocultural 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 ...

History

After 960 the town was part of

Piast Poland The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of Poland, history of the Polish state. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gall Anonymous in t ...

under

Mieszko I Mieszko I (; – 25 May 992) was the first ruler of Poland and the founder of the first independent Polish state, the Duchy of Poland. His reign stretched from 960 to his death and he was a member of the Piast dynasty, a son of Siemomysł and ...

. It is first mentioned under the name ''Wanszowna'' in historical records in the chronicle of

Jan of Czarnków Jan(ko) of Czarnków ( pl, Jan(ko) z Czarnkowa) (ca. 1320–1387), of Nałęcz coat of arms, was a Polish chronicler, Deputy Chancellor of the Crown and Archdeacon of Gniezno. He started his career as a diplomat in service of one of Polish bishops ...

in 1383. The first record instance of the name Więcbork occurred in 1405. The town was part of the

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to: Historical political entities *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031 *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exist ...

and it was a

private town A private town is a town owned by a private person or a family. History of Private Towns in Poland In the history of Poland, private towns (''miasta prywatne'') were towns within the lands owned by magnates, bishops, knights, princes, etc. A ...

, which belonged to various Polish magnates. Administratively it was located in the Nakło County in the

Kalisz Voivodeship Kalisz Voivodeship may also refer to: *Kalisz Voivodeship (1314–1793) *Kalisz Voivodeship (1816–1837) The Kalisz Voivodeship was a voivodeship of the Congress Poland, that existed from 1816 to 1837. Its capital was Kalisz. It was established o ...

in the

Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown , subdivision = Province , nation = Poland , year_start = , event_end = Third Partition of Poland , year_end = , image_map = Prowincje I RP.svg , image_map_capt ...

. After the First Partition of Poland in 1772 the town became part of

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...

, under the name ''Vandsburg''. In 1807 Więcbork was regained by

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 ...

and included within the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw ( pl, Księstwo Warszawskie, french: Duché de Varsovie, german: Herzogtum Warschau), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during ...

and in 1815 it was reannexed by Prussia, where it was administratively part of the Flatow district (''Landkreis Flatow'') until 1920, when the eastern part of the district with 30,516 inhabitants (including 8,600

)Wolfgang Bahr: ''Kurze Geschichte des Flatower Landes''. In: ''Heimatbuch für den Kreis Flatow – Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen – Provinz Pommern''. Heimatkreisausschuss für den Kreis Flatow (ed.), printed by Karl Neef oHG (Wittingen), Gifhorn 1971, pp. 37-42 (in German). and the towns of

Kamień Krajeński Kamień Krajeński (; ''Kamień Pomorski'' between 1920–1945; german: Kamin in Westpreußen) is a town in Sępólno County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland, with 2,276 inhabitants (2004). It is located within the ethnocultural ...

Sępólno Krajeńskie Sępólno Krajeńskie (german: Zempelburg) is a town in northern Poland, in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is the capital of Sępólno County (P''owiat Sępoleński'') and Gmina Sępólno Krajeńskie. Zempelburg was part of Greater Po ...

and Więcbork were reintegrated with the re-established Polish Republic after 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 ...

. The town became part of

, under the restored Polish name Więcbork. Sępólno County was

invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

and annexed by

Nazi Germany 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 ...

in 1939, and the town now became part of Landkreis Zempelburg, under the name ''Vandsburg''. During the German invasion, the '' Einsatzgruppe IV'' entered the town on to commit atrocities against Poles. During the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

were subject to persecutions, mass arrests, expulsions and massacres. Numerous Poles were imprisoned in a

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

in Radzim and in a prison established by the ''

Selbstschutz ''Selbstschutz'' (German for "self-protection") is the name given to different iterations of ethnic-German self-protection units formed both after the First World War and in the lead-up to the Second World War. The first incarnation of the ''Selb ...

'' in

, and later murdered there or deported to other Nazi concentration camps.Wardzyńska (2009), p. 168 Mass arrests of Poles were carried out from September 1939. In 1945 the town was restored to Poland.

Number of inhabitants by years

Sports

Grom Więcbork sports club is based in Więcbork, with

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift Weight training#Equipment, weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various t ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

and

duplicate bridge Duplicate bridge is a variation of contract bridge where the same set of bridge deals (i.e. the distribution of the 52 cards among the four hands) are played by different competitors, and scoring is based on relative performance. In this way, eve ...

sections.

References

Cities and towns in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Sępólno County Pomeranian Voivodeship (1919–1939) {{Sępólno-geo-stub