In World War I the German Army used it for a large prisoner-of-war camp for Russian POWs, including ethnic Polish conscripts from the Russian Partition of Poland.[4] After the war, the former camp housed German civilians fleeing Soviet Russia and Poles so that they would be prevented from participating in the Greater Poland uprising of 1918–1919 and joining the nascent Polish army.[4] Many stayed, thus in 1920, about 25% of the residents were immigrants.[4]
In 1933, a Nazi concentration camp was established in the town, which was later converted into a training center for police forces of Nazi Germany and SA.[4] In World War II it was the site of the notorious Stalag II-BPOW camp in which initially Polish POWs were held, and later also French, Belgian, Serbian, American, Soviet and Italian POWs,[5] and Polish civilians from Soviet captivity mistakenly classified as POWs,[6] of which tens of thousands, mainly Soviets, died from disease, mistreatment and malnutrition. From June to October 1941, the town was the location of another camp, the Stalag II F for Polish, French and Soviet POWs, before its relocation to Przemyśl.[7] In 1945, with the defeat of Nazi Germany, the town became again part of Poland under the terms of the post-war Potsdam Agreement. Afterwards, Poles displaces from Soviet-annexed eastern Poland settled in Czarne, and since 1951 it hosts a garrison of the Polish Army.[8]
^Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. pp. 302–303. ISBN978-0-253-06089-1.