Tuliszków is a town in

Turek County Turek is a town in central Poland with 31,282 inhabitants . It is the capital of Turek County in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. History Turek is first mentioned in the historical record 1136, when it was listed as belonging to the archbisho ...

Greater Poland Voivodeship Greater Poland Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo wielkopolskie; ), also known as Wielkopolska Voivodeship, Wielkopolska Province, or Greater Poland Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 ...

, in central

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 ...

, with 3,406 inhabitants (2004).

History

The oldest mention of Tuliszków in 1320 originates from the Chronicle of

Kacper Niesiecki Kasper Niesiecki (31 December 1682 – 9 July 1744), also known as Kacper Niesiecki, was a Polish heraldist, Jesuit, lexicographer, writer, theologian and preacher. Biography Niesiecki was born in Greater Poland to a burgher family. In 1699 he ...

, written three centuries later. Known in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

ized forms as ''Tviliskow, Tuliscov'', or ''Tuliscovo'', the name is of Polish origin, and means fox grounds. It received

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

in 1458. It has

canting arms Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name (or, less often, some attribute or function) in a visual pun or rebus. French heralds used the term (), as they would sound out the name of the armiger. Many armorial all ...

, depicting a fox, and in addition it also depicts local knight Janusz of Tuliszków holding his Grunwald sword (he fought in the

Battle of Grunwald The Battle of Grunwald, Battle of Žalgiris or First Battle of Tannenberg was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respec ...

of 1410). 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. ...

, administratively located in the Konin County in the Kalisz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. Following 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 ...

of 1793, 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 1807, it was regained by Poles 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 ...

. After the duchy's dissolution, it fell to the

Russian Partition The Russian Partition ( pl, zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Po ...

of Poland in 1815. Nevertheless, the town grew substantially in the 19th century. During the January Uprising, on February 19, 1864, a small Polish insurgent unit entered the town and seized funds for the uprising. The Russians chased after the insurgents, capturing one of them. Tuliszków was one of many towns stripped of town privileges by the tsar in 1870 as revenge for the January Uprising against the Russian occupation. Much of the town was consumed by fire in 1881. The population of Tuliszków was approximately 2,000 in the beginning of the 20th century. Following Poland's return to independence the town rights were restored. In the Second Polish Republic the population grew to 2,600 before 1939.

Jewish community

The Jewish community was 250 people in the 1921 census, led by

Rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

Joel Foks, member of Mizrachi. The economic crisis of the 1930s forced some families to leave in search of a better life. Following the joint Nazi German and 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

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 ...

in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany. There were only 230 Jews in Tuliszków at the onset of war, around 10% of the general population. In December 1939 the invading Germans ordered the creation of a ''

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...

'' and forced all adult Jews to wear the Star of David; the community was stripped of money and valuables. Within weeks the ghetto was formed, one of the first Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland, and electricity was cut off from it in the dead of winter. Stronger Jews were pressed to forced labour. The ghetto was liquidated in October 1941 and all Jews – men, women and children – deported to transit ghetto in Kowale Pańskie. Some escaped from that ghetto and returned to Tuliszków to hide. Others were sent to forced labor camps near

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

or to

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

. Most of those in the Kowale Pańskie ghetto were sent to

Chełmno extermination camp , known for = , location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland) , built by = , operated by = , commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth , original use = , construction = , in operatio ...

. Only one Tuliszkow Jew is known to have survived the war.

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Turek County Holocaust locations in Poland