Kruklanki is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

Giżycko County __NOTOC__ Giżycko County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, northern Poland. It came into being on 1 January 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms of 1998. ...

, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern 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 Kruklanki __NOTOC__ Gmina Kruklanki is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Giżycko County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. Its seat is the village of Kruklanki, which lies approximately north-east of Giżycko and east of the reg ...

. It is located in

Masuria Masuria ( ; ; ) is an ethnographic and geographic region in northern and northeastern Poland, known for its 2,000 lakes. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District. Administratively, it is part of the Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship (ad ...

. It lies approximately north-east of

Giżycko Giżycko (former or ''Łuczany''; ) is a town in northeastern Poland with 28,597 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is situated between Lake Kisajno and Lake Niegocin in the region of Masuria, within the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is ...

and east of the regional capital

Olsztyn Olsztyn ( , ) is a city on the Łyna River in northern Poland. It is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with powiat rights, city with county rights. The population of the city was estimated at 169,793 residents Olsz ...

History

Kruklanki was established in 1545 by Jan Bębelnik, who bought land to establish the village. It was first settled and then predominantly inhabited for centuries by

Polish people Polish people, or Poles, are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation who share a common History of Poland, history, Culture of Poland, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble t ...

. A new church was built in . During

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 ...

, six Polish generals, including

Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski Generał Tadeusz Komorowski (1 June 1895 – 24 August 1966), better known by the name Bór-Komorowski (after one of his wartime code names: ''Bór'' – "The Forest") was a Polish military leader. He was appointed commander-in-chief a day be ...

, and around 20 aides-de-camp and orderlies were initially held as prisoners of war by the Germans in the village after the suppression of the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

in 1944. The Germans offered the Polish generals to collaborate, but the Poles declined.

References

Villages in Giżycko County 1545 establishments in Poland Populated places established in 1545 {{Giżycko-geo-stub