Luboń (german: Luban) is a town in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, situated on the

Warta River The river Warta ( , ; german: Warthe ; la, Varta) rises in central Poland and meanders greatly north-west to flow into the Oder, against the German border. About long, it is Poland's second-longest river within its borders after the Vistula, a ...

, in the

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

metropolitan area, in the

Poznań County Poznań County ( pl, powiat poznański) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government ref ...

in the

Greater Poland Voivodeship Greater Poland Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo wielkopolskie; ), also known as Wielkopolska Voivodeship, Wielkopolska Province, or Greater Poland Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 o ...

. It has 29,301 inhabitants (2010). The town was created in 1954 by the merger of 3 long established villages; (Old) Luboń, Żabikowo and Lasek.

History

The oldest known mention of Luboń dates back to 1316, while Żabikowo was mentioned in 1283, and Lasek was founded in 1756. All three villages were part of the

Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown , subdivision = Province , nation = Poland , year_start = , event_end = Third Partition of Poland , year_end = , image_map = Prowincje I RP.svg , image_map_capt ...

until the 1793

Second Partition of Poland The 1793 Second Partition of Poland was the second of three partitions (or partial annexations) that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The second partition occurred in the aftermath of the Polish–Russian War ...

, when they were annexed by

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

. Regained by the

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...

in 1807, Luboń was included in the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw ( pl, Księstwo Warszawskie, french: Duché de Varsovie, german: Herzogtum Warschau), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during ...

, and in 1815 it was re-annexed by Prussia. Since 1856 a railway line connecting

with

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

ran through present-day Luboń. In 1870, a College of Agriculture (''Wyższa Szkoła Rolnicza'') was established in Żabikowo, as a Polish college, and was forced to close in 1876 as a result of Anti-Polish policies of the German authorities. From 1871 part of Germany, the Germans located new factories in Luboń and initiated German colonization after 1905 in order to change its ethnic composition. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Poland regained independence in 1918 and Luboń was reintegrated with Poland. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Luboń was occupied by Germany from 1939 to 1945. The Germans established a

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

camp for

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

in Żabikowo (called ''Poggenburg'' by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s) in the north-west of Luboń. In 1943–1945 Żabikowo was also the site of a Nazi prison camp, which replaced the

Fort VII Fort VII, officially ''Konzentrationslager Posen'' (renamed later), was a Nazi German death camp set up in Poznań in German-occupied Poland during World War II, located in one of the 19th-century forts circling the city. According to different e ...

camp in western

, and in which over 20,000 people were imprisoned. The prisoners were mainly members of the Polish resistance movement, but also

Luxembourgers Luxembourgers ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerger ) are a Germanic ethnic group and nation native to their nation state of Luxembourg, where they make up around half of the population. They share the culture of Luxembourg and speak Luxembourgish. Luxembourg ...

, Dutch, Hungarians, Slovaks, Americans, Soviet prisoners of war and deserters from the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

. Prisoners were subjected to inhuman living conditions, torture and executions. There is now a museum and a monument entitled ''Nigdy wojny'' ("Never War") by Józef Gosławski, as well other monuments to various people imprisoned and murdered in the camp. After the end of German occupation, the area was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the

Fall of Communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

in the 1980s. Luboń was granted

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

in 1954 with Żabikowo and Lasek included within its town limits. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the

Poznań Voivodeship Poznań Voivodeship was the name of several former administrative regions (''województwo'', rendered as ''voivodeship'' and usually translated as "province") in Poland, centered on the city of Poznań, although the exact boundaries changed over t ...

. In August 1980, employees of local factories joined the nationwide anti-communist strikes, which led to the foundation of the

Solidarity ''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...

organization, which played a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland.

Gallery

File:Lubon gimnazjum.JPG, John Paul II Elementary School No.5 File:Warta w Luboniu.jpg, Warta River in Luboń File:Siewca Luboń RB5.JPG, Historic Sower Monument (''Pomnik Siewcy''), created by

Marcin Rożek Marcin Rożek (8 November 1885 – 19 May 1944) was a Polish sculptor and painter and co-founder and professor at the School of Decorative Arts in Poznań. Rożek is most closely associated with the region of Greater Poland and the city of Pozna� ...

File:PL Lubon Zabikowo Nigdy wojny 07.JPG, "Never war" monument at the site of the Nazi German prison in Żabikowo

References

External links

* Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Poznań County {{GreaterPoland-geo-stub

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links