Znin
About fifty kilometres south of Bydgoszcz lies a town called Znin. Just over a week after the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Znin was occupied. Immediately the Germans began to arrest middle-class poles because they were considered a threat to German supremacy. These were put in a prison established in the city where they were subjected to interrogations that often consisted of both abuse and torture to force information or confessions. Some prisoners were sent to other prisons or camps, but some were executed in the autumn of 1939 in several places in the forests outside the city.
Current status: Monument (2024).
Location: 52°48' 26.87" N 17°48' 06.29" E
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Lukas, Richard C: Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944 (2008).
Exactly how many graves there are in the area I don’t know, but two of them are located about seven kilometers southeast of Znin. One is located along a road where twenty two Poles were shot and buried. Another smaller grave is located in a forest where three poles were shot and buried. The monument alongside the road is easy to find as it is visible from the road. The monument in the forest is harder to find because you have to walk about 50 meters into the forest from the gravel road to find it.