Nowe Skalmierzyce was the first settlement in the area to be liberated by Polish insurgents.

During the German occupation (World War II), a transit camp for Poles expelled from the region was operated in the local school.

[3] In 1943, it was renamed Kalmen by the occupiers in attempt to erase traces of Polish origin.

On the night of 14–15 September 1943, a plane of the Special Operations Executive, carrying a supply of weapons and ammunition for the Home Army Polish resistance organization, crashed in the town.

In the town, there are monuments commemorating the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–1919[2] and the prisoners of the former Nazi German transit camp for Poles expelled from the region.