History of Suwalki

come shifted from agriculture to trade and commerce. Also, in 1931 the new water works and a power plant were built. Also, Suwałki continued to serve as one of the biggest garrisons in Poland, with two regiments of the Polish 29th Infantry Division and almost an entire Suwałki Cavalry Brigade stationed there. Beginning in 1928 Suwałki was also the headquarters of one of the battalions of the Border Defence Corps.

During the later stages of the Polish Defensive War of 1939 the town was briefly captured by the Red Army. However, on October 12 of the same year the Soviets withdrew and transferred the area to the Germans, in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Alliance. The town was renamed to Sudauen and incorporated directly into the German Reich's East Prussia. Severe laws and terror that erupted led to the creation of several resistance organisations. Although most of them were at first destroyed by the Gestapo, by 1942 the area had one of the strongest ZWZ and AK networks. Despite the resistance, almost all of the town's once 7,000-strong Jewish community was murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Also, in Suwałki's suburb of Krzywólka a POW camp for almost 120,000 Soviet prisoners of war was established. On October 23, 1944, the town was captured by the forces of the Soviet 3rd Belarusian Front. The fights for the town and its environs lasted for several days and took the lives of almost 5,000 Soviet soldiers. The anti-Soviet resistance of former Armia Krajowa members lasted in the forests surrounding the town until the early 1950s.

After the war, Suwałki remained a capital of the powiat. However, the heavily damaged town recovered very slowly and the Communist economic system could not solve the town's problems. This period came to an end in 1975, when a new administrative reform was passed and Suwałki yet again became the capital of a separate Suwałki Voivodeship. The number of inhabitants rose rapidly and by the