It was a private town of Polish nobility, administratively located in the Kościan County in the Poznań Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province.

[4] During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was captured by Germany after a Polish defense, co-organized by the local mayor Władysław Pioch.

[4] In the following weeks, on September 30 and October 23, 1939, the German Einsatzgruppe VI carried out two public executions of Poles, killing 8 and 15 people respectively.

[5] Among the victims were pre-way mayors Władysław Pioch and Maksymilian Stachowiak, local Polish activists, intelligentsia and former insurgents of the Greater Poland Uprising.

[6] In 1940, Germany expelled 500 Poles to the General Government (German-occupied central Poland), and their houses were handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.