back...Celebration of the National Day of Polish Children of War in Lodz

“The arrests of Polish children from the town of Mosina on the 10th of September 1943 was not only a stage in their wartime ordeal. It is also a symbol of the policies of the German and Soviet occupiers, which were aimed at destroying Polishness by striking at what is most precious to the future of any national community, namely children. We must remember that this event was part of planned actions, the consequences of which included the fate of Polish children displaced, deported, Germanized, Russified and killed in camps and gulags. Children who heroically defended Warsaw and other Polish cities. Children who shared the fate of their parents, the Unbroken Soldiers”, said the Director of the Museum of Polish Children – Victims of Totalitarianism in connection with the celebration of the National Day of Polish Children of War, held for the first time on the 10th of September this year.

On the 10th of September 2023, at the Archcathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaw Kostka and at the Children's Martyrdom Monument (the monument of the Broken Heart) in Lodz,we celebrated a new national holiday enacted by the Polish Parliament, the National Day of Polish Children of War. In accordance with the text of the Act of 13 July 2023, the holiday was established “as a tribute to the Polish Children of War, who, despite the trauma they experienced due to the hecatomb of World War II, the criminal acts of the German and Soviet occupiers, were able to lift our common Homeland from the ruins, and in token of respect and gratitude for their efforts (...)".

“The date of the holiday refers to the arrests of Polish children by the German military police and the Gestapo in the Wielkopolska town of Mosina on the 10th of September 2023. The arrests were part of the massive repressive action that had already targeted the families of detained children the day before. The event marked the apogee of the arrests of Mosina residents accused by the German occupiers of collaborating with the Polish independence underground as part of the so-called Sache Moschin (‘Mosina case’),”said Dr. Ireneusz Piotr Maj.

Most of the children arrested on the 10th of September were sent to the German concentration camp for Polish children on Przemyslowa Street, which had been operating in occupied Lodz since the 1st of December 1942.