Luboń () is a town in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, situated on the

Warta River The river Warta ( , ; ; ) rises in central Poland and meanders greatly through the Polish Plain in a north-westerly direction to flow into the Oder at Kostrzyn nad Odrą on Poland's border with Germany. About long, it the second-longest rive ...

, in the

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

metropolitan area, in the

Poznań County Poznań County () 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 reforms passed in 1998. ...

in the

Greater Poland Voivodeship Greater Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. The province is named after the region called Greater Poland (''Wielkopolska'' ). The modern province includes most of this historic re ...

. It has 32,848 inhabitants (2022). 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 Greater Poland Province () was an administrative division of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from 1569 until 1795. The name of the province comes from the historic land of Greater Poland. The Greater Poland Province consisted initially of twel ...

until the 1793

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

, when they were annexed by

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

. Regained by the

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

in 1807, Luboń was included in the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

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

with

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

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 or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

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

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

camp for

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

in Żabikowo (called ''Poggenburg'' by the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

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 differen ...

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 ( ; ) are an ethnic group 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, a West Germanic language. Luxembourgers w ...

, 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 German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

. 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, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...

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 or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

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

* {{Authority control Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Poznań County

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links