Cekcyn (Polish pronunciation: ) is a village in

Tuchola County __NOTOC__ Tuchola County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-central Poland. It came into being on 1 January 1999 as a result of the Polish local government reforms pas ...

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 is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' ) is the basic unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,479 gminy throughout the country, encompassing over 43,000 villages. 940 gminy include cities and tow ...

(administrative district) called

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

. It lies approximately east of

Tuchola Tuchola (; ) is a town in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland. The Pomeranian town, which is the seat of Tuchola County, had a population of 13,418 . Geographical location Tuchola lies about north of Bydgoszcz, close to th ...

and north of

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its bank (geography), left-bank tributary, the Brda (river), Brda, the strategic location of Byd ...

. Cekcyn is located in the middle of the Tuchola Forest (''Bory Tucholskie'') in historic

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

. Around the buildings there are few lakes with the biggest one - Wielkie Jezioro Cekcyńskie. The word 'bory' means woods riddled with conifers, mainly pines. Visitors admit the pine forests are everywhere around. One of the most recognizable buildings in the centre is a church. This Neogothic church was erected in 1869. During summer vacation there is a very important event for the whole community. It is the holiday of administrative district Cekcyn, which has become a new tradition, and a way to promote this village.

History

Cekcyn historically was also named ''Ciechocinek'' and ''Ciechocin Polski''. In 1301 King Wenceslaus II of Poland enfeoffed the village to his chancellor Piotr Święca. Later on, in the early modern period, it was a royal village of the Polish Crown, administratively located in the Tuchola County 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 ...

. 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 ...

), in 1940 and 1943–1944, the Germans carried out expulsions of Poles, whose farms were then 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. Three Polish families were enslaved as forced labour to serve Germans in Cekcyn and another nearby village.Wardzyńska, p. 77 In 1942 the Germans renamed the village to ''Seehaupten'' to erase traces of Polish origin. After the war the historic name ''Cekcyn'' was restored.

References

Villages in Tuchola County {{Tuchola-geo-stub