Owińska is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Czerwonak __NOTOC__ Gmina Czerwonak is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Poznań County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Czerwonak, which lies approximately north-east of the regional capital Poznań. ...

, within

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 ...

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 ...

, in west-central Poland. It lies approximately north of

Czerwonak Czerwonak is a village in Poznań County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Czerwonak. It lies on the east bank of the Warta River, approximately north-east of t ...

and north of the regional capital

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 ...

. The village has a population of 2,500. Owińska lies close to the

Warta 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 ...

river, on the main road and railway line from Poznań to

Wągrowiec (german: Wongrowitz) is a town in west-central Poland, from both Poznań and Bydgoszcz. Since the 18th century it has been the a seat of a powiat. Administratively it is attached to the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The town is situated in the m ...

. In the village are a former

Cistercian convent Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church. History The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey, was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in t ...

(now a school for the blind), a Renaissance church, and a palace built in late classical style (1804–1806).

World War II

Owińska was the location of a

mental hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...

where approximately 1,000 patients were murdered by Nazi Germany 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 opposing ...

. They were shot in the back of the neck in the nearby forest. The victims were buried in 28 mass graves. In the second stage of the same "aktion" conducted after October 26, 1939, the remaining patients were taken to a bunker in Fort VII and gassed with carbon monoxide released from steel bottles. A year later, additional 200 patients from

were brought in and gassed at the same location. From August 1943 to January 1945 the Germans operated a

subcamp Subcamps (german: KZ-Außenlager), also translated as satellite camps, were outlying detention centres (''Haftstätten'') that came under the command of a main concentration camp run by the SS in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. The Nazi ...

of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in the village, whose prisoners were mostly

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 C ...

and

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Owinska Villages in Poznań County Palaces in Poland