to 1933 and Wiktor Barwicki from 1933 till 1939. After the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany, which carried out a genocidal campaign against the local Polish and Jewish population. Chełmża was one of the sites of executions of Poles carried out by Germany in 1939 as part of the Intelligenzaktion. Many local Poles, especially teachers, were also massacred in the Barbarka forest in present-day Toruń, also as part of the Intelligenzaktion. The German state at the time considered Poles and Jews to be untermenschen and planned their eradication as national groups. To escape this fate many local Poles took the III and IV group of Volksliste. In early 1945, in Chełmża, Polish forced labourers evacuated from Jajkowo were forcibly conscripted by the Germans to the Organisation Todt, however, some managed to escape. As result of German extermination and repressions the population of the town declined to 10,000 in March 1945. In January 1945 the Red Army took Chełmża, thus ending the German occupation. Soviet repressions followed and 600 people of German descent were deported to Siberia. The losses inflicted by German occupation regarding the population were gradually reversed and in 1980 Chełmża counted 15,000 inhabitants. Sports The most notable sports clubs of the town are football club and rowing club . Famous residents (born 1934), Polish priest and biblical scholar Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski (1913–1945), Polish priest and patron of Polish Scouts, died of typhus at Dachau concentration camp (1895–1958), priest, professor, historian of Polish Catholic Church Michał Kwiatkowski (born 1990), Polish cyclist Jutta of Kulmsee aka Jutta von Preussen, Saint Judith, Saint Judith of Prussia or Jutta von Sangerhausen (1200–1260) Julian Prejs (1820–1904), Polish teacher and journalist Lothar Treuge (1877–1920), poet Kurt Vespermann (1887–1957), actor Eberhard Thunert (1899–1964), German general Józef Wrycza (1884–1961), Polish independence fighter and Catholic priest Gallery References Preussische Regesten, Ann.Thor.Chron.terre Pruss. Ss.r.Pr. III 59 468 Urkundenbuch des Bisthums Culm, Latin: (Document record of Bishopric Culm/Kulm) Notes External links Urkundenbuch des Bisthums Culm- Latin text of Culmsee (Culmensi) Online scan of Biedaczek, a polish newspaper published in 19th-century Chelmża Cities and towns in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Toruń County Holocaust locations in Poland