Scolnus, and claimed that Scolvus was really Jan z Kolna (English: John of Kolno), 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, which started World War II, Kolno was taken over by the German forces on 8 September 1939. On 12–13 September 1939, the German Einsatzgruppe V entered the town to commit various crimes against the populace. On 29 September Soviets entered the area in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The Soviets carried out mass deportations of the inhabitants to the Soviet Union. Already in 1939, the Polish resistance movement was organized in Kolno by Stanisław Milewski. The town remained under Soviet occupation until Operation Barbarossa (22 June 1941) 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 by the Germans 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 leader of the local Polish resistance, Stanisław Milewski, was killed by the Germans in July 1944. The Soviet Army liberated Kolno on the night of 23–24 January 1945 and ceded the town back to Poland, however, with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. Sports Orzeł Kolno – football club Notable persons Maria Lani born in Kolno in 1895; in the late 1920s while in Paris portrayed in paintings and sculpture by over fifty notable artists. Albert Lewis was a Broadway and film producer who was born to a Jewish family in Kolno and emigrated to the US as a child. Pessah Bar-Adon (born Pessah Panitsch) was an archaeologist, who was involved in many excavations in Israel. Gertrude Blanch (born Gittel Kaimowitz) was an accomplished Mathematician, who emigrated to the US as a child. Nehemiah Samuel Libowitz was a Jewish scholar. Joseph Gabowicz was an acclaimed Sculptor. Avraham Akavia was a soldier, author and personal aide to Orde Wingate. Ze'ev Yavetz was a historian, author, teacher and one