was established in the town. Some days later the citizens elected deputies to the Polish Parliament in the Prussian Partition (Polski Sejm Dzielnicowy). On 31 December 1918 Poles took power in Odolanów from Germans as part of the Greater Poland Uprising. Insurgents from Odolanów fought a. o. in the battle of Granowiec during the night of 14–15 January 1918. In 1919 the town was confirmed to be reintegrated with the Second Polish Republic. 74 insurgents from the former Odolanów County were killed in the uprising, and a monument dedicated to them was unveiled in the park in 1923. On 1 September 1939, the first day of the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Odolanów was quickly captured by the Wehrmacht. The German administration was using terror, many Poles were expropriated, expelled, killed or sent to concentration camps. Local mayor Jan Krak was arrested and imprisoned in nearby Kalisz and then murdered in a large massacre of over 70 Poles from the region, carried out in Winiary (present-day district of Kalisz) on 14 December 1939. The Germans destroyed the pre-war monument to the fallen insurgents of the Greater Poland uprising, and established and operated a Nazi prison and a forced labour camp for Jews in the town. The German occupation in Odolanów was over on 22 January 1945, when Soviet tanks entered the town. Some soldiers of the Polish underground continued their resistance, now against the Soviet dominance and the puppet Stalinist government (so-called cursed soldiers). On 22 October 1945 the troop of Jan Kempiński, nom de guerre Błysk, operating in the Odolanów area was smashed by the Department of Security forces. Notable people Jan Zborowski (1538–1603), Polish Court Hetman of the Crown Rafał Leszczyński (1650-1703), Polish nobleman, father of King of Poland Stanisław Leszczyński Wilhelm Altmann (1862-1951), historian and musicologist References External links Odolanów On-Line (in Polish) Cities and towns in Greater Poland Voivodeship Ostrów Wielkopolski County