Turek, Poland


Turek is a town in central Poland with 31,282 inhabitants. It is the capital of Turek County.
Turek has been situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; it was in Konin Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998.

History

Turek is first mentioned in the historical record 1136, when it was listed as belonging to the archbishops of Gniezno. It received its city rights in 1341.
The town was the capital of a district within the Kalisz region of the Russian Empire. Following the end of the First World War in 1918, Turek became part of the Second Polish Republic. With the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War, Turek was occupied by the Wehrmacht and annexed by Nazi Germany. It was administered as part of the county or district of Turek within Reichsgau Wartheland.
During the German occupation which began in September 1939, the nearly 3000 Jews in Turek were brutalized, forced into an overcrowded ghetto in 1940, starved, and robbed of all their possessions. In 1941, some men were sent to labor camps near Poznan, but the majority of Turek's Jews were sent to a rural ghetto in Kowale Panskie. In July 1942, most of them were sent to the Chelmno killing camp where they were gassed immediately. Only around 30 Turek Jews survived the war.
With the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 and the end of the war, Turek was integrated into the People's Republic of Poland.

International relations

Twin towns — sister cities

Turek is twinned with: