Kwidzyn is located on the Liwa River, some 5 kilometres (3.1 miles)[2] east of the Vistula river, approximately 70 km (43 mi) south of Gdańsk and 145 km (90 mi) southwest of Kaliningrad. It is part of the region of Powiśle.
The Pomesanian settlement called Kwedis existed in the 11th century. In 1232, the Teutonic Knights built the castle and established the town of Marienwerder (now Kwidzyn) the following year. In 1243, the Bishopric of Pomesania received both the town and castle from the Teutonic Order as fiefs, and the settlement became the seat of the Bishops of Pomesania within Prussia.[3] The town was populated by artisans and traders, originating from towns in the northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire. A Teutonic knight, Werner von Orseln, was murdered in Marienburg (Malbork) in 1330. He was among the first to be buried in the newly erected cathedral of the town.
St. Dorothea of Montau lived in Marienwerder from 1391 until her death in 1394; future pilgrims visiting her shrine would contribute to the flourishing economy.
The town of Marienwerder meanwhile had become the capital of the District of Marienwerder. In 1772, the Marienwerder district was integrated into the newly established Prussian Province of West Prussia, which consisted mostly of territories annexed in the First Partition of Poland. In November 1831, several Polish cavalry units of the November Uprising stopped in the town on the way to their internment places.[11]
1920s view of the castle and cathedral
By the enlargement of its administrative functions, the population of the town started to grow and in 1885, it numbered 8,079. This population was composed mostly of Lutheran inhabitants, many of whom were engaged in trades connected with the manufacturing of sugar, vinegar and brewing as well as dairy farming, fruit growing and the industrial construction of machines. In 1910, Marienwerder had a population of 12,983 of which 12,408 (95.6%) were German-speaking and 346 (2.7%) were Polish-speaking.[12]
As a result of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the district of Marienwerder was divided. The parts west of the Vistula were incorporated into the Polish Second Republic, which had just regained its independence. The parts east of the Vistula, to which the town of Marienwerder belonged, was to take part in the East Prussian plebiscite, which was organized under the control of the League of Nations. The Inter-Allied Commission with nearly 2,000 troops often favored the Germans, and its services towards Poles were often delayed and limited, while the administration remained under German control.[13] The town was home to the Polish Warmian Plebiscite Committee and the Committee for Polish Affairs, which, however, had to operate partly secretly.[14] On May 16, 1920, the largest Polish plebiscite demonstration in Powiśle took place in the town, and Poles had to organize defenses against attacks by German militias.[15] According to Polish sources there was German electoral fraud[16] resulted in 7,811 votes given to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and only 362 for Poland.[17] Afterwards, anti-Polish terror intensified.[16]
Aerial view of the town in the 1920s
According to the Geneva Conventions, the Polish community was entitled to its own schools, and from 1934 local Poles strove to establish a Polish school.[18] The Germans blocked the establishment of the school, and Polish organizations filed 100 complaints to the German administration before the Polish private gymnasium was finally established on November 10, 1937.[18] Local German press incited the Germans against the Polish school,[19] and in 1938 a fourteen-year-old boy was shot at the school playground, which the German police ignored, and the shooter was not caught.[18] The Germans, especially the Hitler Youth, repeatedly harassed and attacked Polish students and devastated the school.[18] It was forcibly closed down on August 25, 1939.[20] The German police surrounded the Polish school and arrested its principal Władysław Gębik, 13 teachers, other staff and 162 students, who were imprisoned in Tapiau (today Gvardeysk),[21] and then deported elsewhere. Later on, students under the age of 18 were released, older students were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht, while teachers and staff were deported to concentration camps,[18] where most of them were murdered.[22] The head of the local Polish Bank Ludowy was also arrested, and the local Polish consulate was cut off from telephone lines, nevertheless the state radio in Poland still provided information regarding the attack on the Polish school on the same day.[21]
Nazi Germany co-formed the Einsatzgruppe V in the town, which then entered several Polish cities, including Grudziądz, Ciechanów, Łomża and Siedlce, to commit various atrocities against Poles during the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II.[23] Many Poles expelled from German-occupied Poland were deported to forced labour in the town's vicinity.[24] The Germans also operated a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp in the town.[25] On 21 January at approximately 16:00, a surprising order came to evacuvate the civilians westwards towards Chojnice. When the Red Army invaded East Prussia at least 95% of the citizens of Marienwerder were speaking German as their mother tongue, and therefore they feared the atrocities committed to the German population. A majority of them left the city but not all arrived save territory alive. Those which stayed were robbed, raped and eventually murdered by the Red Army. On 30 January the town was captured by the Red Army. The Red Army established a war hospital in the town for 20,000 people. The town center was burned and pillaged by Soviet soldiers. In the course of 1945 the city was emptied of the last German inhabitants.
Meanwhile, large parts of the inner city were sacked. Since then, Polish newcomers from Poland and Lithuania repopulated the town and its environments. The Lutheran ecclesiastical buildings were handed over to the Catholic Church.[26]
After World War II, the town became again part of Poland under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Elbląg Voivodeship.
1982 protest of interned anti-communist oppositionists
In 1982, the communists brutally crushed the protest of interned anti-communist oppositionists.[27]
The main landmark is the Kwidzyn Castle, a 14th-century Brick GothicOrdensburg castle and cathedral complex of the Pomesanian Cathedral Chapter, which now houses a museum. It is listed as a Historic Monument of Poland.[33] The adjacent co-cathedral of St. John the Evangelist was built between 1343 and 1384, and serves as a co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Elbląg. It contains the tombs of three Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights as well as numerous bishops. A bridge connects the castle to a sewer tower which was once situated on a river that has since dried up.
Other sights include the Appellate Court for Kwidzyn County, the town hall, the Holy Trinity church, the Saint Padre Pio chapel, various government buildings and old townhouses.
The city has lower average crime and unemployment rates when compared with the national average rates of Poland.[34] These lower rates are attributed to sports programmes for youth such as MMTS Kwidzyn (handball) and MTS Basket Kwidzyn.[34]
The intersections of Polish National roads 55 and 90, Voivodeship roads 521 and 532, and Voivodeship roads 518 and 588, are located either in Kwidzyn or just outside of the town limits. There is also a train station.
^Moraczewski, Jędrzej (1847). Dzieje Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z pierwszéj połowy szesnastego wieku (in Polish). Poznań. p. 277.
^Gołębiowski, Łukasz (1830). Domy i dwory (in Polish). Warszawa. p. 87.
^Ciesielski, Tomasz (2010). "Prusy Wschodnie w trakcie polskiej wojny sukcesyjnej i wojny siedmioletniej". In Gieszczyński, Witold; Kasparek, Norbert (eds.). Wielkie wojny w Prusach. Działania militarne między dolną Wisłą a Niemnem na przestrzeni wieków (in Polish). Dąbrówno. p. 107. ISBN978-83-62552-00-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Kasparek, Norbert (2014). "Żołnierze polscy w Prusach po upadku powstania listopadowego. Powroty do kraju i wyjazdy na emigrację". In Katafiasz, Tomasz (ed.). Na tułaczym szlaku... Powstańcy Listopadowi na Pomorzu (in Polish). Koszalin: Muzeum w Koszalinie, Archiwum Państwowe w Koszalinie. p. 140.
^Plebiscyt 1920 roku. Walka o Polskość Warmii, Mazur i Powiśla (in Polish). IPN. p. 15.
^Plebiscyt 1920 roku. Walka o Polskość Warmii, Mazur i Powiśla, pp. 16–17
^Plebiscyt 1920 roku. Walka o Polskość Warmii, Mazur i Powiśla, p. 17
^ abPlebiscyt 1920 roku. Walka o Polskość Warmii, Mazur i Powiśla, p. 18
^Marzian, Herbert; Kenez, Csaba (1970). Selbstbestimmung für Ostdeutschland – Eine Dokumentation zum 50 Jahrestag der ost- und westpreussischen Volksabstimmung am 11. Juli 1920 (in German). p. 117.
^Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. p. 31.
^Andreas Lawaty, Wiesław Mincer and Anna Domańska: Deutsch-polnische Beziehungen in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Bibliographie. Vol 2: Religion, Buch, Presse, Wissenschaft, Bildung, Philosophie, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, ISBN3-447-04243-5, p. 879 (restricted preview)
^ abCygański, Mirosław (1984). "Hitlerowskie prześladowania przywódców i aktywu Związków Polaków w Niemczech w latach 1939-1945". Przegląd Zachodni (in Polish) (4): 41.
^Wardzyńska, Maria (2017). Wysiedlenia ludności polskiej z okupowanych ziem polskich włączonych do III Rzeszy w latach 1939-1945 (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. pp. 119, 129. ISBN978-83-8098-174-4.
Neuman, Franz; Gründer, Otto (1983). Marienwerder Westpreußen: Aus den Leben einer deutschen Stadt an der unteren Weichsel. Heimatkreis Marienwerder/Westpreußen. pp. 315–316.
Poland
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