1918 Poland regained independence after World War I and the Greater Poland Uprising broke out, the aim of which was to reunite the region with Poland. In response the Germans placed over 1,000 Grenzschutz troops in the town and persecuted the local Polish population. In January 1919, the Germans interned six leading local Polish activists in Świętoszów. Despite their plans, the Polish insurgents did not try to recapture the town, however, it was still restored to Poland on 17 January 1920. Following the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Kępno was occupied by the Wehrmacht and on September 6–7, 1939 the Einsatzgruppe III entered the town to commit atrocities against Poles. Some Poles from Kępno were murdered by German troops already on September 7, 1939, in the nearby village of Wylazłów. The town was annexed by Nazi Germany, renamed Kempen and administered as part of the county or district (kreis) of the same name within Reichsgau Wartheland. Its population was subject to segregation, Germanisation, confiscation of property, arrests, expulsions, deportations to forced labour, imprisonment in concentration camps and executions. The Germans established and operated a Nazi prison in the town. Polish monuments were destroyed. The Polish resistance movement was organized in Kępno in November 1939. Red Army troops took the town on January 21, 1945, and with the end of the war, the town returned to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. The Polish resistance movement remained active in the town, and in September 1945 it captured the local communist police station and liberated the prisoners. Cuisine Kępno is one of the production sites of the Greater Poland liliput cheese (ser liliput wielkopolski), a traditional regional Polish cheese, protected as a traditional food by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland. Notable residents Wilhelm Freund (1806–1894), philologist Samuel Holdheim (1806–1860), reform rabbi Malbim (1809–1879), rabbi Louis Phillips (1829-1900), wealthy land owner and rancher in Los Angeles, born in Kępno Hermann Aron (1845–1913), electrical engineer Gustav Jacob Born (1851–1900), histologist Eugen Rehfisch (1862–1937), physician (1865–1925), publicist, writer and member of parliament Edward Lasker (1885–1981), chess player Hans Schleger (1898–1976), graphic designer, born in Kempen Witold Tomczak (born 1957), physician, politician Education Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania "Edukacja" in Wrocław, branch in Kępno Transport The intersection of the Polish S8 and