although development slowed, because the city became peripheral, the Kreis (district) being situated on post-war Germany's border with the Polish Corridor. Polish claims to Stolp and its neighbouring area were refused during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations. The city, having become the regional center of the eastern part of Eastern Pomerania, thrived, becoming known as Little Paris. A cultural highlight was an annual art exhibition. From 1926 the city became an active point of Nazi supporters, and the influence of NSDAP grew rapidly. The party with Hitler received 49.1% of the city's vote in the German federal election of March 1933, when however, the election campaign was marked by Nazi terror. During the Kristallnacht, the night of 9/10 November 1938, the local synagogue was burned down. Second World War The beginning of the Second World War halted the development of the city. The Nazis created a labour camp near Słupsk, which became Außenarbeitslager Stolp, a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp. During the war, Germans brought forced labourers from occupied and conquered countries and committed numerous atrocities. People in the labour camp were maltreated physically and psychologically and forced to undertake exhausting work while being subject to starvation. Between July 1944 and February 1945, 800 prisoners were murdered by Germans in a branch of the Stutthof camp located in a railway yard in the city; today a monument honours the memory of those victims. Other victims of German atrocities included 23 Polish children murdered between December 1944 and February 1945, and 24 Polish forced labourers (23 men and one woman) murdered by the Schutzstaffel (SS) on 7 March 1945, just before the Red Army took over the city without any serious resistance on 8 March 1945. In fear of Soviet repression, up to 1,000 inhabitants committed suicide. Thousands remained in the city; the others had fled and the German soldiers abandoned it. However, the Soviet soldiers were ordered to set fire to the historical central Old Town, which was almost completely destroyed. Post-war period After the war, the city became again part of Poland and most of the German population either fled or was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. The city was settled by Poles, most of whom were expelled from the former Polish eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union (around 80% at the end of 1945) and the rest were mainly repatriates from the Soviet Union