People attend an opening of a Polish-German sign on the entrance to Lubowice village
© AFP Bartek Wrzesniowski

WARSAW (AFP) - "We want to highlight our roots, our cultural identity," Lubowice village administrator Urszula Badurczyk told AFP. "We're proud to be the first to introduce Polish-German bilingual signage."

About 85 percent of the village's 150 residents have German roots and the vast majority speak German and Polish, according to Badurczyk.

In a 2006 village-wide referendum they voted overwhelmingly to add "Lubowitz" to Lubowice signs posted on roads leading into the village.

"Ethnic Germans have always lived here and virtually every family in our village now has relatives in Germany," she said. "We have a German cultural centre and many visitors from Germany come all the time."

Located in Poland's southern Upper Silesia region, Lubowice was part of Germany prior to World War II and in 1788 the birthplace of Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, one of Germany's most celebrated romantic writers and poets.

Eleven communities in Poland have won the right to introduce bilingual signs, according to the Polska daily. Eight of them in German, two in Kashubian, a western Slavic language, and one in Lithuanian.

©AFP