Świecko ' is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in the administrative district of Gmina Słubice, within Słubice County, Lubusz Voivodeship

Lubusz Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Lubusz Voivodeship is divided into 14 counties : 2 city counties and 12 land counties. These are further divided into 83 gminas....

, in western Poland, close to Frankfurt an der Oder on the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 border. It lies approximately 6 kilometres (4 mi) south of Słubice, 66 km (41 mi) south-west of Gorzów Wielkopolski, and 74 km (46 mi) north-west of Zielona Góra.

The village has a population of 180.

Transport

The important A2 autostrada (Poland)

A2 autostrada (Poland)

The autostrada A2 in Poland is a motorway which, when completed, will run from west to east through central Poland, from the Polish-German border in Świecko/Frankfurt , through Poznań, Łódź and Warsaw to the Polish-Belarusian border in Terespol/Brest...

, which is part of the European route E30

European route E30

European route E 30 is an A-Class West-East European route, extending from the southern Irish port of Cork in the west to the Russian city of Omsk in the east...

, crosses the border near the village. The road connects with the German A12 autobahn

Bundesautobahn 12

is an autobahn in eastern Germany, connecting Berlin to the Polish border.- Exit list :...

 at Frankfurt an der Oder, where the two motorways are linked by a motorway bridge across the River Oder.

All border controls at this crossing ceased as at 21 December 2007 when Poland joined the Schengen Area

Schengen Area

The Schengen Area comprises the territories of twenty-five European countries that have implemented the Schengen Agreement signed in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, in 1985...

.

History

Before 1945 the area was part of Germany (see Territorial changes of Poland after World War II

Territorial changes of Poland after World War II

The territorial changes of Poland after World War II were very extensive. In 1945, following the Second World War, Poland's borders were redrawn following the decisions made at the Potsdam Conference of 1945 at the insistence of the Soviet Union...

). The village is the site of a former Nazi concentration camp

Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

which functioned during World War II.