Monument to the Heroes of the Battle of the Bzura

The monument stands on Plac Tadeusza Kościuszki in central Łęczyca, on the local market square. It commemorates soldiers who defended the city in September 1939 during the Battle of the Bzura, residents murdered by Germans during the occupation, and soldiers who liberated Łęczyca in January 1945.

Battle of the Bzura

The Battle of the Bzura lasted from 9 to 22 September 1939 and was the largest engagement of the September campaign. Over 630 thousand soldiers took part in it, of which 225 thousand were on the Polish side. Łęczyca lay in the battle zone, and the soldiers defending it sustained losses that the present monument commemorates. The scale of the engagement, involving over half a million soldiers on both sides, makes it one of the largest episodes of the September campaign, and the memory of the city garrison that fought here remains the principal reason for the monument's creation.

Others commemorated by the monument

Besides the city's defenders from 1939, the monument also mentions Łęczyca residents murdered by Germans during the occupation and soldiers of the Red Army and Polish Army who liberated the city in January 1945. Inscriptions on the plinth also recall participants in the November Uprising of 1830, the January Uprising of 1863 and the 1905 revolution, successive independence movements in which residents of the region engaged over more than a hundred years. The monument thus functions as a collective place of memory for several generations, extending beyond a single event.

Creation of the monument

The monument was erected in 1961, during commemorations of the 550th anniversary of the imprisonment of Teutonic Knights in the dungeons of the Royal Castle in Łęczyca following the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. The city combined several anniversaries important to local history, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, in a single monument, which explains the broad range of commemorated events on one plinth.

Practical information

• Address: Plac Tadeusza Kościuszki, 99-101 Łęczyca, on the city market square.
• Access: on foot; the monument stands on an open square in the centre, a few minutes' walk from the archicolllegiate church and the castle.
• What to expect: a stone monument with commemorative plaques, accessible without restrictions at all times, surrounded by market square buildings.