Piątek, Łódź Voivodeship

Piątek
Village
Piątek
Coordinates: 52°4′9″N 19°28′50″E / 52.06917°N 19.48056°E / 52.06917; 19.48056
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Łódź
County	Łęczyca
Gmina	Piątek
Population	2,130

Monument marking the "geometrical centre" of Poland

Piątek [ˈpjɔntɛk] is a village in Łęczyca County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Piątek. It lies approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Łęczyca and 32 km (20 mi) north of the regional capital Łódź.

The village has a population of 2,130. It is claimed to lie at the "geometrical centre" of Poland, although it is not the true geographical centre – it is the centre determined as the intersection of the great circle diagonals of a rectangle formed by lines of latitude and longitude passing through the four extreme points of Poland.

Massacre during Second World War

During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, Wehrmacht soldiers on 13 September mass murdered 50 people of which 43 were Poles and 7 Jews. The victims were murdered without any reason given. After Germans entered the village males were forcefully taken out of homes and forced to repair a bridge, after the work was completed the German soldiers shot all of them. Another massacre took place later in which 50 Jews were executed.^[1]

References

Coordinates: 52°4′9″N 19°28′50″E / 52.06917°N 19.48056°E / 52.06917; 19.48056