Zbąszyń (german: Bentschen) is a
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares ...
in western
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...
, in
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
A province is almost always an administrative division ...
, in
Nowy Tomyśl County. It is the administrative seat of
Gmina Zbąszyń.
Geography
The town is situated on the
Obra river in the
Greater Poland historic region, about west 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 Joh ...
. Gmina Zbąszyń is part of the Polish-German
Pomerania Euroregion.
History
While the earliest mentions of the settlement date back to 1231, the name ''Sbansin'' first appeared in a 1277 deed, issued by Duke
Przemysł I of Greater Poland at his
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 Joh ...
residence. Its citizens received
town privileges
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 traditio ...
before 1311, making Zbąszyń one of the oldest towns in Poland. It was held by the
Polish monarchs until in 1393 King
Władysław II Jagiełło
Jogaila (; 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło ()He is known under a number of names: lt, Jogaila Algirdaitis; pl, Władysław II Jagiełło; be, Jahajła (Ягайла). See also: Names and titles of Władysław II Jagiełło. ...
ceded it to his
Masovian governor Jan Głowacz
Nałęcz. By the early 15th century, Zbąszyń evolved as a centre of the Greater Polish
Hussite movement. Zbąszyń 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 ...
, administratively located in the Kościan County in the
Poznań Voivodeship in the
Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown.
As a result of 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 ...
in 1793 it became part of the
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: ...
, under the Germanized name ''Bentschen'' and was administered as part of the newly established province of
South Prussia. In 1807, it was regained by the Poles as part of the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw. However in 1815, after the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
, it was reannexed by Prussia and was part of the
Grand Duchy of Posen
The Grand Duchy of Posen (german: Großherzogtum Posen; pl, Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, created from territories annexed by Prussia after the Partitions of Poland, and formally established following th ...
which later became the
Province of Posen. The
Frankfurt-Posen railway line, which passed through the town was built in 1870.
In 1871, it became part of the
German Empire. Having experienced a strong influx of population from Germany in the 17th century, Bentschen was predominantly German-speaking until 1920. According to the German census of 1890, Bentschen had a population of 3,176, of which 200 (6.3%) were
Poles.
After Germany's defeat in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, Poland regained independence, and the
Greater Poland uprising broke out, which goal was to reunite the region with the reborn Polish state. 42 Polish insurgents died in battle in Zbąszyń. At the local cemetery, there are graves of Polish insurgents who either died in battle, were executed by the Germans in the town, or died in German captivity.
The town eventually became part of the
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...
in 1920, according to the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...
.
In the
interwar period, the town was located on the border with
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
. International trains connecting
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
and
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
with
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...
and the Polish-Soviet border at
Negoreloe ran through Zbąszyń, and in 1929 a new larger railway station building was erected to enable the handling of heavy traffic and accommodate the necessary offices. In this period, the proportion of Poles increased and in 1938, the population of the town stood at 5,400 which included 360
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
and 52
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""T ...
.
In October 1938,
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 ...
decided to expel those
German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
who did not hold German citizenship or had it taken away, and who originally hailed from Poland. The ''
Polenaktion'' began on October 27, 1938, as the Nazis began arresting Jews of Polish nationality in Germany with the intention of expelling them to Poland. The Nazis took this decision was the issuing of a decree by the Polish Ministry of the Interior on the 6 October 1938 which called for the passports of Polish citizens residing abroad would have to be checked and revalidated. A few days before that decree was to come into force, 17,000 German Jews that were or could be considered to be citizens of Poland were rounded up and unceremoniously dumped on the Polish border in various border towns,
[ Michael Burleigh, ]Wolfgang Wippermann
Wolfgang Wippermann (29 January 1945 – 3 January 2021) was a German historian. He served as supernumerary professor of modern history at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin, and also taught at the Berlin Universit ...
, ''The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945'', Relevant page available via Google Book Search
/ref> including 6,800 in Zbąszyń. The Polish government in turn refused to admit those of them who did not hold valid Polish passports. The Polish authorities hoped that the concentration of large numbers of Jews expelled from Germany near the border would exert pressure on the Germans and induce them to begin negotiations to hasten the return of the Jews back to their former homes. As a result, thousands of Jews were stuck on the border in makeshift facilities for several days or weeks in appalling conditions.Joseph Marcus
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
''Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919–1939
/ref>
During the initial stage, the local inhabitants of Zbąszyń responded to the authorities' appeal and provided the refugees with warm water and some food. On the afternoon of the 30 October 1938, help arrived from Warsaw supplied by Emanuel Ringelblum and Yitzhak Gitterman Yitzhak Gitterman (1889-1943) was a director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Poland, and a member of the underground Jewish Combat Organization.
Gitterman was born in Hornostaipil, Ukraine, Russian Empire and began a ...
of the Joint Distribution Committee, who were to form the General Jewish Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland, established several days later on the 4 November 1938.
A committee to help the refugees was also set up in Zbąszyń headed by a Jewish flour-mill owner named Grzybowski. The refugees were housed in army barracks and in buildings forming part of the flour mill, and fifteen hundred of them were accommodated in private dwellings. Expenses were met by the aid committee.
The situation generated widespread outrage among the Jewish community in Poland, which conducted extensive efforts to help the internees in any way possible. It also prompted Herschel Grynszpan
Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German language, German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a History of Jews in Poland, Polish-Jewish ex ...
, a Polish Jew, to assassinate Ernst vom Rath, a German Embassy official in Paris, on November 7, 1938, which in turn provided the Nazis an excuse to carry out Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung, (SA) paramilitary and Schutzstaffel, (SS) paramilitary forces along ...
, the anti-semitic pogrom of November 9–10, 1938. Eventually the Polish government finally allowed them, in stages, to enter the country.
Negotiations between the Polish authorities and the Germans came to an end on the 24 January 1939, when an agreement was signed under which the deportees were allowed to return to Germany, in groups not exceeding one hundred at a time, for a limited stay to settle their affairs and liquidate their businesses. The proceeds of such liquidation would have to be deposited in blocked accounts in Germany from which withdrawals were practically impossible.
The Polish government, for its part, enabled the families of the deportees to join them in Poland. These arrangements took until the summer of 1939, and most probably, a small number of refugees were still on their temporary stay in Germany when the Germans invaded Poland on 1 September 1939.
In 1939, frequent border violations by Germany took place, and on 25 August, Germany halted international rail transport. On 1 September 1939, the day of the German invasion of Poland, which marked the beginning of 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, at dawn, the Germans invaded the town, which was recaptured by the Poles in the morning, however, it soon fell to Germany. During the German occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 193 ...
, the Polish population was subjected to various crimes, and in December 1939 the Germans expelled 110 Poles, activists, officials and wealthier residents with entire families, whose homes were then handed over to German colonists as part of the ''Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Impe ...
'' policy. The Germans operated a Nazi prison and a forced labour camp for Jews in the town, and destroyed the pre-war monument dedicated to the Polish insurgents of the Greater Poland uprising of 1918–1919.[
]
Culture
There is a historical and ethnographic museum in Zbąszyń ('' Muzeum Ziemi Zbąszyńskiej i Regionu Kozła'').
Sports
The local football club is Obra Zbąszyń. It competes in the lower leagues.
Notable residents
* Marcin Czechowic (1532–1613), Polish theologian
*Stefan Garczyński
Stefan may refer to:
* Stefan (given name)
* Stefan (surname)
* Ștefan, a Romanian given name and a surname
* Štefan, a Slavic given name and surname
* Stefan (footballer) (born 1988), Brazilian footballer
* Stefan Heym, pseudonym of German writ ...
(1690–1756), Polish nobleman and writer
* Otto Schmirgal (1900–1944), German politician
* Hans Petersson (1902–1984), German mathematician
*Stanisław Olejniczak
Stanisław Feliks Olejniczak (28 March 1938 – 1 February 2022) was a Polish basketball player. He competed in the men's tournament at the 1964 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were ...
(born 1938), Polish former basketball player, member of the Poland men's national basketball team
The Poland men's national basketball team ( pl, Reprezentacja Polski w koszykówce) represents Poland in international basketball competitions. They are controlled by the Polish Basketball Federation (PZKosz).
Poland has competed at the EuroB ...
See also
Henryk Rolirad Henryk Rolirad (11 April 1909 – 4 January 1984) was a Polish Food engineering, food–systems engineer who was recognized as a Righteous among the Nations for saving Jews during World War II.
Early life
Henryk Rolirad was born in Poznań, Poland ...
References
External links
Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1938 – “The Fateful Year”
on the Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
website
Holdings related to German-Jewish expulsion to Zbąszyń
from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zbaszyn
Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship
Nowy Tomyśl County
Holocaust locations in Poland