Brusy (; formerly ) is a town in northern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, located in the

Chojnice County Chojnice County (, ) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Pomeranian Voivodeship, northern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms in 1998. Its administra ...

in the

Pomeranian Voivodeship Pomeranian Voivodeship ( ; ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in northwestern Poland. The provincial capital is Gdańsk. The voivodeship was established on January 1, 1999, out of the former voivodeships of Gdańsk Voivo ...

. As of June 2023, the town has a population of 5,103.

History

Brusy was a royal village of the Polish Crown, administratively located in the Tuchola County in the

. Since the 19th century Brusy was an important center of the Kashub movement, although a fair amount of Kashubians from Brusy emigrated to Winona, Minnesota in the late 1900s. In 2007, the ninth Congress of Kashubians was held here, and in 2012, the annual Kashubian Unity Day celebration was conducted here. A Kashubian secondary school is also located in the town. In the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

, it was administratively located in the Chojnice County in the

of Poland. According to the 1921 census, Brusy had a population of 2,260, 98.2% Polish. During the German occupation of Poland (

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 ...

), inhabitants of Brusy were among over 450 Poles massacred by the Germans in autumn of 1939 in the Igielska Valley. In November 1939 the SS,

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and Selbstschutz murdered local Polish teachers in a large massacre of Polish teachers near Skarszewy. Further executions of local Poles were carried out in January 1940 in the Igielska Valley and in the fields near

Chojnice Chojnice (; or ; or ) is a town in northern Poland with 38,789 inhabitants, as of June 2023, near the Tuchola Forest. It is the capital of the Chojnice County in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Founded in , Chojnice is a former royal city of Poland ...

. In May 1942, the Germans expelled dozens of Poles, whose farms were handed over to

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

as part of the ''

Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...

'' policy. The secret Polish resistance organization Pomeranian Griffin (Gryf Pomorski) operated in the Brusy area under the leadership of Colonel Józef Wrycza, who was also a Roman Catholic priest. The Germans set up a

Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...

training ground in the vicinity, and located its administration in Brusy. Brusy was also the location of the Nazi German Bruss subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp, in which around 500 female prisoners were held as forced labour. It has obtained town rights on 1 January 1988.

Notable people

* Stanisław Lamczyk (born 1957), Polish politician, elected to the Sejm in 2005 * Piotr Piekarski (born 1964), retired Polish 800 metres runner, participated in the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics (, ), officially the Games of the XXV Olympiad (, ) and officially branded as Barcelona '92, were an international multi-sport event held from 25 July to 9 August 1992 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Beginning in 1994 ...

* Jan Wyrowiński (born 1947), Polish politician and Kashubian activist

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Pomeranian Voivodeship Chojnice County

History

Notable people

See also

References

External links