| Turek | |
| Motto: | Turek zawsze po drodze / Miasto silne jak tur Turek always on your way / City strong as an aurochs |
| Pushpin Map: | Poland |
| Pushpin Label Position: | bottom |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Type1: | Voivodeship |
| Subdivision Name1: | Greater Poland |
| Subdivision Type2: | County |
| Subdivision Name2: | Turek |
| Subdivision Type3: | Gmina |
| Subdivision Name3: | Turek (urban gmina) |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Romuald Antosik |
| Established Title: | First mentioned |
| Established Date: | 1136 |
| Established Title3: | Town rights |
| Established Date3: | 1341 |
| Area Total Km2: | 16.16 |
| Population As Of: | 2009 |
| Population Total: | 31282 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Timezone: | CET |
| Utc Offset: | +1 |
| Timezone Dst: | CEST |
| Utc Offset Dst: | +2 |
| Coordinates: | 52.0167°N 48°W |
| Elevation M: | 113 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
| Postal Code: | 62-700 |
| Area Code: | +48 63 |
| Registration Plate: | PTU |
| Website: | https://www.miastoturek.pl/ |
Turek is a town in central Poland with 31,282 inhabitants . It is the capital of Turek County in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It is located in the Sieradz Land.
Turek is first mentioned in the historical record 1136, when it was listed as belonging to the archbishops of Gniezno. It received its town rights in 1341.[1] It was a private church town, administratively located in the Sieradz County in the Sieradz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland.[2]
Turek was annexed by Prussia in 1793 in the Second Partition of Poland, regained by Poles and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, and included within so-called Congress Poland in 1815, soon forcibly integrated with the Russian Empire. It was then capital of a district within the Kalisz Governorate.[3] In 1826, Fryderyk Chopin travelled through the town.[4] During the January Uprising, it was the site of clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops on August 20 and December 28, 1863.[5] Following the end of the First World War in 1918, Turek became part of the Second Polish Republic as the country regained independence.
With the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Turek was occupied by the Wehrmacht and annexed by Nazi Germany. It was administered as part of the county or district (kreis) of Turek within newly formed province of Reichsgau Wartheland. The Polish population was subjected to expulsions, confiscation of property, deportations to Nazi concentration camps and murder (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). In autumn of 1939, the Einsatzgruppe VI carried out a number of executions of Poles at the local market.[6] Teachers from Turek were among Polish teachers murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp.[7] The first expulsion of 160 Poles was carried out in December 1939, and the expellees' shops, workshops and houses were then handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.[8] A transit camp for Poles expelled from the region was operated in the town.[9] During the German occupation, the nearly 3,000 Jews in Turek were brutalized, forced into an overcrowded ghetto in 1940, starved, and robbed of all their possessions. In 1941, some men were sent to forced labour camps near Poznań, but the majority of Turek's Jews were sent to a rural ghetto in Kowale Pańskie. In July 1942, most of them were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed immediately. Only around 30 Turek Jews survived the war.
With the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 and the end of the war, Turek was integrated into the People's Republic of Poland.
From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Konin Voivodeship.
The local football club is Tur Turek. It competes in the lower leagues.
See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Poland.
Turek is twinned with:
