It produced carbide: the facility, where a Nazi transit camp was set up during WWII, is survived today by a dam feeding a hydroelectric power plant on the Brda river.

[1] Facing these considerations, the German company Brandenburgisches Carbidwerk GmbH, established in 1902, started to look in the eastern territory of Prussia for a suitable location where new investments in this sector could be realized in order to increase national production.

[2] To boost its activity, the Brandenburgisches Carbidwerk GmbH did not limit the use of carbide for lighting and welding, but also opened it to the production of potassium fertilizer for the agriculture.

The joint-stock company "Karbid Wielkopolski" was established on the site of the liquidated "Brandenburgisches Carbidwerk GmbH" and took over the production on July 1, 1921.

Furthermore, the purchase of a new turbine allowed to increase the current output of the power plant from 2,400 to 3,000 horsepower (2,200 kW), leading to raise the production of carbide by 25% in 1923–1924.

At its heyday, "Karbid Wielkopolski" properties consisted of:[2] The largest area (472.95 square metres (0.11687 acres)) was devoted to the forge and the warehouses.

[9] To that end, the factory premises were leased to the "Umwandererzentralstelle (UWZ) Danzig-Westpreußen" (English: Central office for Emigrants in Gdańsk-West Prussia), coordinating the expulsion of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews.

The policy of Germanisation of Pomerania dictated that this camp (similarly to those in Potulice and Toruń) was directed towards the rural population of Polish origin living in the newly created Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (i.e. the north-western part of Poland).

[2] Already before WWII, most of the plots belonging to "Karbid Wielkopolski" in Smukała and Opławiec which did not include factory buildings (e.g.g workers' housing estate, farms, meadows), had been allotted and sold out.

After a meeting held in the Bydgoszcz City Hall on November 27, 1946, no steps were taken to rebuild the war damage of the reactivated company.

The machines and tools confiscated by the Germans had diverse fates:[2] The company was liquidated under the resolution of the General Meeting of Shareholders on April 11, 1949.

The "Zakłady Energetyczne Okręgu Północnego w Bydgoszczy" (English: Northern District Power Plant in Bydgoszcz) took over the factory buildings, warehouses and offices.

[19] Commemorative plaques can be found in the premises of today's boarding school, which used to hold the prisoners,[21] but also in the cemeteries where the unfortunate are buried, on the monument along the Brda river or in the Smukała church "Transfiguration of the Lord".