Polenstrasse (Thalheim)
The Polenstrasse near Thalheim is a connecting road in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland . It leads from Thalheim in the Schenkenbergertal over the Chilholz towards Zeihen in the upper Fricktal . The road is one of the many Polish roads that were built in Switzerland between 1941 and 1945 by interned Polish soldiers.
description
The Polenstrasse is particularly important as an access route to various hamlets and remote farms in the north of the Thalheim municipality. The road begins in the lower village ( 443 m above sea level ) and goes around the Schenkenberg with the ruin of the same name on its east side. It then leads through the hamlets of Stalten ( 506 m above sea level ) and Schenkenbergerhof ( 564 m above sea level ), until after about two kilometers in the Elmhard corridor ( 617 m above sea level ) below the Chilholz Passes unpaved dirt road that continues in the direction of Zeihen. At the edge of the village of Thalheim, a memorial stone in the retaining wall indicates the history of the road.
Construction of the road
After the German Wehrmacht began its western campaign in May 1940, the Swiss Army carried out a second mobilization . The existing transition from Schenkenberger- to Fricktal, however, was too steep for the artillery , which is why the army planned the construction of a more even road in February and started the first work in April. Due to a lack of military workers, work was suspended from the end of June.
On June 20, 1940, 13,000 soldiers of the 2nd Polish Rifle Division, who had previously fought alongside the French until their armistice with the German Reich after fleeing from German-occupied Poland , crossed the Swiss border and were then interned . In February 1941, a few dozen Poles arrived in Thalheim, who lived in barracks on the Schulhausplatz and resumed work on the street. The raw material for the pavement came from a quarry above the village, where the internees drilled holes in the rock in order to then blow it up. A drainage ditch and retaining walls in particularly steep sections were built next to the road.
In February 1943 the Polish internees (who were allowed to move freely in the village) left Thalheim, whereupon the work was completely stopped. The road remained unfinished; there was no longer any interest in continuing to build in the direction of Zeihen because the end of the war was in sight. In April 1948, the Polenstrasse became the property of the municipality of Thalheim.
Coordinates: 47 ° 26 '47.7 " N , 8 ° 6' 1.8" E ; CH1903: 649920 / 255300
literature
- Caroline Belart: Many of them cried - Polish internees in Switzerland and especially in the municipality of Thalheim (AG) during the Second World War . In: Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau (Ed.): Argovia . tape 118 . Verlag hier + now, Baden 2006, ISBN 3-03919-039-3 , p. 47-63 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ National map of Switzerland, sheet 1069, Swisstopo