Brzezinki is a village in the administrative district of

Gmina Zbiczno __NOTOC__ Gmina Zbiczno is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Brodnica County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Zbiczno, which lies approximately north of Brodnica and north-east of T ...

, within

Brodnica County __NOTOC__ Brodnica County () 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 government reforms p ...

Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship * Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) in Poland. * Kuyavian-Pomeranian is one of 13 Polish constituency of the European Parliament. * Kuyavian-Pomeranian Regional Assembly is the regional legislature of t ...

, in north-central Poland. It lies south-east of

Zbiczno Zbiczno is a village in Brodnica County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Zbiczno. It lies north of Brodnica and north-east of Toruń. History During th ...

, north of

Brodnica Brodnica () is a town in northern Poland with 28,574 inhabitants . It is the seat of Brodnica County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. The nearby Brodnica Landscape Park, a protected area, gets its name from Brodnica. History The first r ...

, and north-east of

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

History

On 15 August 1920, during the

Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution. After the collapse ...

, the village was occupied by the Russian 4th Army, before it was eventually recaptured by the Poles on 18 August. During the

German occupation of Poland German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

), in autumn of 1939, the Nazi German police and ''

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 ''Sel ...

'' executed around 400 Polish civilians from

, Brzezinki and other nearby villages, in the forest in Brzezinki. The massacre was part of the genocidal ''

Intelligenzaktion The ''Intelligenzaktion'' (), or the Intelligentsia mass shootings, was a series of mass murders committed against the Polish people, Polish intelligentsia (teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society) during the ...

'' campaign aimed at exterminating 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 i ...

. In 1944, the occupiers burnt the bodies of the victims to cover up the crime.

Notable people

* Franciszek Koprowski (1895–1967), Polish military officer, Olympic modern pentathlete, member of the ''

Cichociemni The Silent Unseen ( Polish: ''Cichociemni'', ) were elite special-operations paratroopers of the Polish Army in exile, created in Great Britain during World War II to operate in occupied Poland (''Cichociemni Spadochroniarze Armii Krajowej''). K ...

'' and

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

during World War II

References

Villages in Brodnica County Intelligenzaktion massacre locations {{Brodnica-geo-stub