Kolno


Kolno Koльнa is a town in northeastern Poland, located in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, about 150 km northeast of Warsaw. It is the seat of Kolno County, and the seat of the smaller administrative district called Gmina Kolno, but it is not part of this district, as the town has gmina status in its own right. Kolno has 10,730 inhabitants.

History

Kolno was first mentioned in 1222. The town first belonged to the Masovian Dukes, and then to the Polish crown. Kolno received city rights from Prince Janusz III of Masovia in 1425. The major economic expansion took place in the 16th century, with more trade and crafts. Kolno was destroyed by fire during the Kościuszko Uprising. After the Partitions of Poland it became part of Prussia, till 1807, and subsequently, part of Duchy of Warsaw. From 1815 it belonged to Congress Poland. Kolno was destroyed again in the First World War, during battle between Russian and German empires. The population of Kolno during the interwar period increased to 5,163 persons, 70% of them Jewish.

Jan of Kolno

Polish historian and cartographer Joachim Lelewel was the first to gather all available mentions of Jan of Kolno known as Johannes Scolnus, and claimed that Scolvus was really Jan z Kolna, a Polish navigator of the Danish fleet. He also found mentions of a Joannis de Colno who studied at the Kraków Academy in 1455, and a Colno or Cholno family of merchants and sailors living in Gdańsk.

World War II

Following the Nazi German and Soviet Invasion of Poland in World War II Kolno was taken over by the German forces on 8 September 1939. On 29 September Soviets enter the area in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The town remained in Soviet hands until Operation Barbarossa when it was overrun again by the Wehrmacht.
On 5 1941 Hermann Göring and Erich Koch visited the town, and some 30 to 37 Jews were murdered by the local Poles. The rest of the Jewish population, some 2,350 to 3,000 Jews, were executed in several stages beginning on 15 July 1941. Six weeks later, only 80 Jews remained in Kolno, mostly craftsmen and artisans whom the Germans employed.
The Soviet Army liberated Kolno on the night of 23–24 January 1945 and ceded the city back to People's Republic of Poland in accordance with Yalta Conference.

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