Remains of the City Prison - Stockhaus

On the ramparts, next to the stairs leading to the market square, you can find traces of the oldest prison in the city, the Stockhaus, which was in use from the 16th to the 19th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Stockhaus served as a prison and hospital, even during the Napoleonic Wars and the war with Austria. In 1836, the last hangman of Lubań resigned from his post and the Lubań prison became too small, thus, the prisoners were taken to Zgorzelec. It is very likely that in 1843, the building was converted into apartments and a lunatic asylum. In 2011, excavations in the former prison revealed two stone parapets with inscriptions made by prisoners in 1715. One of them is a mill tablet. The building was badly damaged during the Battle of Luban in 1945, and only a fragment of the front wall remains.

Interesting fact:
Among the ruins of the town's penitentiary buildings, the foundations of the town's gallows, built in 1492, have been preserved. They can be seen at the entrance to the town from Zgorzelec (on Jana Pawła II Street). Archaeological excavations have confirmed that convicts were hanged on chains or their bodies were buried inside the gallows. During the excavations, there was a large number of bones as well as metal nails with which the executioner pinned the convicts’ heads to the gallows . In many cases it was also possible to identify the skeletons, i.e. to link the executions described in the chronicles to specific skeletons. The first condemned people were thieves, although in principle anything illegal was punished. A notorious case in Lubań was that of an infanticide who, as it was decided , was drowned in the Kwisa River in a sack together with her cat, dog and cockerel