Potulice (german: Potulitz) (previously also ''Kantów'') is a village in the administrative district of

Gmina Nakło nad Notecią __NOTOC__ Gmina Nakło nad Notecią is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Nakło County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. Its seat is the town of Nakło nad Notecią, which lies approximately west of Bydgos ...

, within

Nakło County __NOTOC__ Nakło County ( pl, powiat nakielski) 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 local g ...

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 north-central Poland. It lies approximately south-east of

Nakło nad Notecią Nakło nad Notecią (Polish pronunciation: ; german: Nakel an der Netze) is a town in northern Poland on the river Noteć with 23,687 inhabitants (2007). It is the seat of Nakło County, and also of Gmina Nakło nad Notecią, situated in the Kuya ...

and west of Bydgoszcz. It is best known as the site of the

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 opposing ...

Nazi German Potulice concentration camp, also known as ''Lebrechtsdorf''. The village has a population of 2,100.

History

Potulice - cmentarz Ofiar obozu hitlerowskiego

It 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 exi ...

until 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 ...

in the

Second Partition of Poland The 1793 Second Partition of Poland was the second of three partitions (or partial annexations) that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The second partition occurred in the aftermath of the Polish–Russian W ...

in 1793. In 1807 it was regained by Poles and included within the short-lived Polish

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 after its dissolution in 1815, it was reannexed by Prussia. From 1871 it also formed part of Germany, until it was reintegrated with

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 populou ...

, after it regained independence following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1918. Following the joint German-Soviet

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, which started

in September 1939, the village was invaded and then occupied by Germany. Germany established and operated a transit camp for Poles expelled from the region, which was soon converted into the Potulice concentration camp. In 1945, the village was liberated and restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which then stayed in power until the

Fall of Communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

in the 1980s. The communists operated the

Central Labour Camp Potulice After the end of World War II, the Central Labour Camp in Potulice ( pl, Centralny Obóz Pracy w Potulicach) became a detention centre for Germans and anti-communist Poles. It was set up by the Soviet and Polish Communist authorities in Potulice ...

References

Potulice {{Nakło-geo-stub

History

See also

References