Every design for Lębork

Did you grow up in Lębork, between the Łeba and the Okalica, with the old Teutonic castle and the town walls as the backdrop to your walk home? Then you know a town whose Kashubian name, Lãbòrg, is as familiar as its German one, Lauenburg, was to earlier generations.

Belonging here is a layered thing. Kashubians, later Slovincians, lived in the town for centuries; after the Second World War it filled again with newcomers from central Poland, from the former eastern borderlands and with families resettled under akcja „Wisła”, who made it their own. Zamek krzyżacki w Lęborku, now the court building, Kościół pw. Świętego Jakuba Apostoła and the surviving Mury i baszta obronna remind everyone that the town is far older than any of its families, and the Muzeum w Lęborku tells the whole story.

The Baltic shore lies thirty kilometres away, the Kashubian forest begins at the southern edge, and on this map you can still trace the river path you took as a child, past Wieża ciśnień to the bend of the Łeba.