Końskowola literally translates as Horse's Will. The name originated from the surname of its early owner Jan z Konina, and the toponym Wola - a type of a village. A slightly different spelling of the same name, "Konińskawola" is noted in 1442.
History
The village was founded probably in the 14th century, under the name Witowska Wola. The name was later changed to Konińskawola, and in the 19th century adjusted to its present form. As a private town, Końskowola served as a marketplace for trade of farm produce for the surrounding area. On June 8, 1532, the town was incorporated. Several textile production factories were built. Many people immigrated to work there from other parts of Poland and elsewhere; among them many immigrants from Saxony. The town shared the history of the entire region. After the third partition of Poland, in 1795, it was annexed by Austria. In 1809 it became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, only to become part of the Kingdom of Poland in 1815. After the January Uprising, in 1870 the town lost its city charter, never to regain it again. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, many demonstrations and strikes of solidarity were organized there. Since 1918, the town remained in sovereign Poland.
World War II
With the onset of the Second World War, Końskowola was overrun by the German troops on September 15, 1939. In the course of the occupation of Poland, the Germans set up a prisoner of war camp and a camp for slave labour in the town. The POW camp was soon liquidated, but a labour camp continued to operate through 1943. The inmates worked for Germans-run farms, and on construction sites of roads and railroads. A Nazi ghetto was established in the town, to which many groups of Jews were relocated, including Jews expelled from Slovakia. On May 8, 1942, the Nazis conducted an Aktion in which many Jews were rounded up and transported to the Nazi extermination camp Sobibor. In October 1942, the ghetto' population was liquidated. In a massacre carried out by German troops: the Reserve Police Battalion 101, some 800-1000 Jews, among them women and children, were taken to a nearby forest and slaughtered. The ghetto's remaining inhabitants were transferred to another camp. With the approach of Red Army forces in the summer of 1944, the Germans had plans to burn the town. On July 25, 1944, the German occupation forces were engaged in battle by fighters of the Polish underground Armia Krajowa, joined by Polish partisans of the Bataliony Chłopskie. With the arrival of Soviet Red Army troops, the combined antifascist combatants succeeded in securing the area's liberation.
