Tuchola [tuˈxɔla] (German: Tuchel; Kashubian: Tëchòlô) is a town in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland.

Settlement around Tuchola dates from 980, while the town was first mentioned in 1287, when the local church was consecrated by the archbishop of Gniezno Jakub Świnka.

[2] It was part of medieval Poland since the establishment of the state in the 10th century, and during its fragmentation it was ruled by the dukes of Gdańsk Pomerania.

Around 1785 there existed 148 households inside Tuchel, and the town owned both the village of Kiełpin (then Kelpin) and the small estate Wymysłowo (then named Wymislawe).

[7] During World War I, a prisoner-of-war camp was established near the town, mostly for Romanians and Russians, but also Poles, Italians, French and British.

Beginning in the autumn of 1920 during Polish-Soviet war, thousands of captured Red Army men were placed in the camp of Tuchola.

These prisoners of war (POWs) lived in crude dugouts, and hunger, cold, and infectious diseases killed many.

[9][10] During the invasion of Poland, which marked the beginning of World War II, Tuchola was captured by the Germans on September 2, 1939.

[11] From mid-September 1939, Germans carried out mass arrests of Poles from the town and county, who were initially imprisoned in the local courthouse, and after its overcrowding, they were deported to a temporary camp established in the nearby village of Radzim.