page_title: Puck, Poland
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Puck, Poland / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Tablica upamiętniająca mieszkańców Pucka rozstrzelanych w 1939 r. English: Plaque to citizens of Puck, victims of II world war
context_page_description: Puck is a town in northwestern Poland with 11,350 inhabitants. It is in Gdańsk Pomerania on the south coast of the Baltic Sea and part of Kashubia with many Kashubian speakers in the town. Previously in the Gdańsk Voivodeship, Puck has been the capital of Puck County in the Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999.
context_section_description: Puck was bombed by Nazi Germany at 5.20am Polish time on Friday September 1, known thereafter as Grey Friday, the first day of the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. Luftwaffe bombers dropped a projectile on the town, which also had an airbase for the Naval Air Squadron; dealing significant damage to the Polish air force units stationed there.
  During the subsequent German occupation, many Poles from the region, including officials, merchants, directors, teachers, judges, priests, notaries, railwaymen, pharmacists, blacksmiths, technicians, postmen and farmers, were imprisoned in Puck, and afterwards murdered in the Piasnica massacre as part of the Intelligenzaktion. In November 1939, the SS expelled families of Poles who were either murdered in the massacres or deported to Nazi concentration camps.
  In the building of the local brewery in 1940, the Germans created a transit camp, in which racial selection of the expelled Polish inhabitants of the region was carried out (see: Racial policy of Nazi Germany). Those considered to be "racially valuable" were deported to Germanisation camps and labor camps in Germany, and the rest were expelled to the General Government. Poles expelled from Gmina Dziemiany were used as forced labour in the local factory.
  Germans operated a branch of the Stutthof concentration camp in Puck in the years 1941 to 1944. After the war, in 1945, Puck was again part of the Republic of Poland.
caption: Memorial plaque at the town hall dedicated to inhabitants of Puck murdered by the Germans in the Piasnica massacre in 1939
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