Haren, Germany

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Haren


Country	Germany
State	Lower Saxony
District	Emsland
Population	22,754 source (2005)
Area	208.77 km²
Population density	109 /km²
Elevation	9-15 m
Postal code	49733
Area code	05932
Licence plate code	EL
Mayor	Markus Honnigfort (CDU)
Website	haren.de

Haren is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany in the district of Emsland.

On 19 May 1945, the Polish 1st Armoured Division, a unit attached to the British Army moved all of the thousand families of Haren out to surrounding communities. 3,500 Poles from Labor camps and prisoner-of-war camps camps in Northern Germany, moved into the town. Many of them had been members of the Polish Home Army, men and women, that had fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Haren's name was changed to Maczków after General Stanislaw Maczek, the commander of the army unit. During the next months, Maczków became a totally Polish town with a Polish mayor, a Polish school, a Polish fire brigade and a Polish rectory. The latter registered 289 weddings and 101 funerals. 479 Poles have birth certificates showing Maczków as place of birth, a place that cannot be found on any map! It was returned to the original inhabitants when the Polish army unit returned to England in June 1947, and the Polish inhabitants of the town were either repatriated to Poland or moved to Great Britain.