Łąck is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in Płock County,

Masovian Voivodeship Masovian Voivodeship or Mazowieckie Province (, ) and any variation thereof, is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, containing Poland's capital Warsaw. Masovian Voivodeship has an area of and had a 2019 po ...

, in central

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' ) is the basic unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,479 gminy throughout the country, encompassing over 43,000 villages. 940 gminy include cities and tow ...

(administrative district) called Gmina Łąck. It lies approximately south-west of Płock and west of

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. It is located on the western shore of Łąckie Duże Lake. The landmark of Łąck is the local palace. Various Polish films were shot in the village, including '' Satan from the Seventh Grade'', '' At Full Gallop'', '' With Fire and Sword'', as well as the 1960s TV series '' Stawka większa niż życie''.

History

In the late 19th century, there was a distillery, a brick factory and a cheese factory in Łąck, and the village had a population of 308. According to the 1921 census, the village with the adjacent manor farm had a population of 312, entirely Polish by nationality and 99.0%

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

by confession. During the German occupation of Poland (

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

), the forest of Łąck was the site of large massacres, in which over 200 Poles were murdered as part of the ''

Intelligenzaktion The ''Intelligenzaktion'' (), or the Intelligentsia mass shootings, was a series of mass murders committed against the Polish people, Polish intelligentsia (teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society) during the ...

''. Around 200 Poles, previously imprisoned in Płock, among them teachers, activists, shopowners, notaries, local officials, pharmacists, directors and members of the Polish Military Organisation, were murdered in Łąck between October 1939 and February 1940, and another 10 Poles were murdered in March 1940. In Łąck, Germans established a transit camp for Poles expelled from nearby villages to the so-called

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

or deported as forced labour to Germany, and many Polish families from Łąck were expelled in May 1942. In the winter of 1942–1943, the Germans buried about 300 kidnapped Polish children in the local forests, after the children were deported in a freight train from another region of occupied Poland to Płock and froze to death. In 1943–1945 the German administration used the Germanized name ''Lonsch'' in reference to the village. German occupation ended in 1945.

References

{{Massacres of Poles Villages in Płock County Populated lakeshore places in Poland Massacres in Poland Sites of World War II massacres of Poles Intelligenzaktion massacre locations