Skoki (german: Schokken) 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 ...

Wągrowiec County __NOTOC__ Wągrowiec County ( pl, powiat wągrowiecki) 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 ...

, with 3,779 inhabitants (December 2004). It is located about 40 km north of

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 ...

. It is the seat of the administrative district (

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' , from German ''Gemeinde'' meaning ''commune'') is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,477 gminas throughout the country, encompassing over 4 ...

) called

Gmina Skoki __NOTOC__ Gmina Skoki is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Wągrowiec County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. Its seat is the town of Skoki, which lies approximately south of Wągrowiec and north-east of the re ...

History

Established in 1367, it has always been a town with handicraft, in particular cloth weaving up to the 19th century. It was a private town of

Polish nobility The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...

, administratively located in the Gniezno County in the

Kalisz Voivodeship Kalisz Voivodeship may also refer to: *Kalisz Voivodeship (1314–1793) *Kalisz Voivodeship (1816–1837) The Kalisz Voivodeship was a voivodeship of the Congress Poland, that existed from 1816 to 1837. Its capital was Kalisz. It was established o ...

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 ...

. The town's coat of arms comes from the Lubicz coat of arms of local Polish nobility. During the joint German-Soviet

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 began

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 ...

in September 1939, the town was invaded and then occupied by Germany until 1945. It was annexed directly into

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and made part of the newly formed province of Reichsgau Wartheland. At this time, the Germans established a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. P ...

for officers ('' Oflag''), named

Oflag XXI-A An Oflag (from german: Offizierslager) was a type of prisoner of war camp for officers which the German Army established in World War I in accordance with the requirements of the 1899 Hague Convention, and in World War II in accordance with the r ...

, later renamed

Oflag XXI-C Oflag XXI-C was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers ('' Offizierlager'') located in Ostrzeszów in German-occupied Poland. It held mostly Norwegian officers arrested in 1942 and 1943, but also Dutch, Italian, Serbian a ...

. Among its prisoners were

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

and Norwegian officers.

Sights

In the town there is a palace which is now part of the

University of Fine Arts in Poznań Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan Poznań (in Polish: ''Uniwersytet Artystyczny im. Magdaleny Abakanowicz w Poznaniu'') is one of the major fine-art academies in Poland. It was founded in 1919 as the State School of Decorative ...

, and a church which lies on the Wooden Churches Trail around Puszcza Zielonka.

Sports

The local

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 ...

club is Wełna Skoki. It competes in the lower leagues.

References

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