Poniec (german: Punitz) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in western

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 in the southern part of 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 ...

. The town has about 3,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of

Gmina Poniec __NOTOC__ Gmina Poniec is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Gostyń County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. Its seat is the town of Poniec, which lies approximately south-west of Gostyń and south of the region ...

(commune) in

Gostyń County __NOTOC__ Gostyń County ( pl, powiat gostyński) 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 gover ...

History

Poniec dates back to the 10th century, when it was part of the emerging Polish state. The oldest known mention comes from 1108. It 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 ...

before 1309. It was a

private town A private town is a town owned by a private person or a family. History of Private Towns in Poland In the history of Poland, private towns (''miasta prywatne'') were towns within the lands owned by magnates, bishops, knights, princes, etc. A ...

, administratively located in the Kościan County 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 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 ...

. Crafts, especially clothmaking, developed and the town prospered until the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655–1660. The Battle of Poniec occurred nearby on 28 October 1704 during the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...

After the

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 ...

, in 1793 it was 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 Poles in 1807, it was included in the short-lived Polish

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 ...

, in 1815 it was re-annexed by Prussia. The local population was subjected to harsh

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...

policies, however local Poles established various organizations, including a local branch of the "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society. Many inhabitants took part in the

Greater Poland uprising (1918–19) Greater Poland Uprising (also Wielkopolska Uprising or Great Poland Uprising) may refer to a number of armed rebellions in the region of Greater Poland: * Greater Poland Uprising (1794) * Greater Poland Uprising (1806) * Greater Poland Uprising (1 ...

, after which Poniec was reintegrated with Poland in 1919, shortly after it regained independence. During the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, which started

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 ...

, German troops entered the town on 6 September 1939. The Polish population was subjected to arrests, executions and expulsions. In the following months, many residents were imprisoned in the town hall. On 21 October 1939 the Germans carried out a public execution of local Poles. It was one of many massacres of Poles committed by Germany on 20-23 October 1939 across the region in attempt to pacify and terrorize the Polish population. Over 300 Poles were expelled to the

General Government The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

, mostly to

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarnów ...

. First Polish families were expelled in December 1939. Many inhabitants were taken to

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 ...

or murdered in

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

. The town was captured by the

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in th ...

in January 1945 and afterwards restored to Poland. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the

Leszno Voivodeship Leszno Voivodeship () was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland from 1975 to 1998, superseded by Greater Poland Voivodeship. Its capital city was Leszno. Major cities and towns (population in 1995) * Leszno (61,300) * ...

Transport

There is a train station in Poniec.

Sports

The town's most notable sports club is Piast Poniec with

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

and

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

sections.

Notable people

Edmund Charaszkiewicz Edmund Kalikst Eugeniusz Charaszkiewicz (; Poniec, 14 October 1895 – 22 December 1975, London) was a Polish military intelligence officer who specialized in clandestine warfare. Between the World Wars, he helped establish Poland's interbellum ...

(1895-1975), intelligence officer

References

External links

Official Poniec website

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Gostyń County 10th-century establishments in Poland Populated places established in the 10th century Nazi war crimes in Poland