Just like in Auschwitz. Polish children in Kinder KL Litzmannstadt on Przemysłowa street in Lodz

The German concentration camp for Polish children on Przemysłowa street in Lodz begun its operation on December 1, 1942. For over than 25 months it has housed some 3,000 children aged between 1 and 16. Witness accounts indicate that infants were also imprisoned there. The Germans murdered about 200 Polish children in the camp. Prisoners were forced to perform grueling physical labor and were subjected to numerous physical punishments. The children were held in primitive conditions, had no access to soap or running water, and suffered constant hunger.

“The facility targets criminal and neglected young Poles of both sexes between the ages of 8 and 16 who do not have an adequate upbringing brought from home, making it necessary to place them under police supervision, as their behaviour may threaten the proper development of the German child, and there is a concern of further criminal acts on their part."

Excerpt from the order of the Reich Security Main Office No. V A 3 3050/42 of November 28, 1942 on the establishment of the Polen-Jugendverwahrlager Litzmannstadt

Source: AIPN, GK 72/34, p.

Photo caption:

Inspection of the camp's tailor shop on Przemysłowa street (Institute of National Remembrance).

Planned working hours in the camp (Institute of National Remembrance).

For being Polish. Gehenna of the children of Mosina - September 10, 1943

To the District Gendarmerie Headquarters in Śrem

Information of the gendarmerie post in Mosina of 10 Sept 1943

sergeant Beukenbusch.

The operation in Mosina continues. Tonight 156 people were arrested.

60 more children are to be arrested today.

                                                                          Received: (illegible signature)

Source: Położenie ludności polskiej w Kraju Warty 1939-1945. Dokumenty niemieckie  (The condition of the Polish population in the Wartheland 1939-1945. German documents. Selection and translation by Prof. C. Łuczak, Poznań 1987, p. 115.

"When my parents were arrested, on the night of September 9-10, 1943, me and my older brother slept hard. Edzio was three and a half years old, I was two and a half. We lived in one house with the Grend family - they downstairs, we upstairs. (...)
When we woke up, the house was empty, and the sun was shining so beautifully that it was hard to look. Suddenly, three Germans, including a woman, in black uniforms entered the house. They told us to get dressed. We didn't know what it was about. For the first time in our lives neither mother nor father were home at dawn. And they were always there. After a while, Dad's 14-year-old sister Gabrysia walked in, as the family already knew that arrests were underway and we needed to be taken care of. The Germans asked her name, and it was like a sentence, because her name was the same name as ours. They didn't let her out. (...)
First to a large room full of other children in Mosina, and then to Poznan. In one truck with my aunt and brother. All the way we cried in the lap of my aunt, who, after all, was also a child...
Me on one knee, Edzio on the other. To Lodz also the three of us, in one cattle car, together with other children."

Source: Account of Jerzy Jeżewicz, J. Sowińska-Gogacz, B. Torański, Mały Oświęcim Dziecięcy obóz w Łodzi,(Little Auschwitz Children's Camp in Lodz), Warsaw 2020, pp. 86-87.

Photo caption:

Transportation of children to the camp on Przemysłowa street (Institute of National Remembrance).

For being Polish. Gehenna of the children of Mosina - September 10, 1943

Donata Adamczyk
Kazimierz Cieślewicz
Czesława Czechowska
Józef Czechowski
Eugeniusz Grenda
Jerzy Grenda
Urszula Grenda
Jadwiga Heigelman
Jan Kałan
Wojciech Papież

Photo caption:

Personal photos of arrested children of Mosina (Art Gallery in Mosina).

"No one knew where they were being deported to, whether to life or death." Displaced children - Żywiec

"(...) They loaded us into trucks and drove us to Żywiec. We stayed in Żywiec for maybe two nights (...). We were sleeping in the school. Straw was spread everywhere on the floor and people slept there, packed side by side. No good sleeping like that... on straw. People packed on the floor, children, as well as adults."

Source: Account of Eugeniusz Firlej. Z pamięci dziecka. Aktion Saybusch – relacje źródłowe Polaków wysiedlonych z Żywiecczyzny w czasie II wojny światowej,  (From a child's memory.Aktion Saybusch - source accounts of Poles displaced from the Żywiec region during World War II), edited by H. Chudzio, A. Śmigielska, Kraków 2022, pp. 41-42.

"What could be packed.. was packed, the rest was left behind, everything. It was a traumatizing experience. We, as children, didn't understand it yet, but what did the parents experience, when they had to leave everything behind, the whole life’s work and work of previous generations, and go to total misery? Tragic... It was so hectic (...) - as if the life of a convict destined for the death penalty."

Account of Bronisław Sroka. Z pamięci dziecka. Aktion Saybusch – relacje źródłowe Polaków wysiedlonych z Żywiecczyzny w czasie II wojny światowej,  (From a child's memory.Aktion Saybusch - source accounts of Poles displaced from the Żywiec region during World War II), edited by H. Chudzio, A. Śmigielska, Kraków 2022, p. 168.

Photo caption:

Displaced from the Żywiec region (City Museum in Żywiec - Castle).

Murdered for helping Jews. The martyrdom of the Ulma family

"It was a terrible despair, not only for the family, but simply for the whole village. The news spread very quickly, as it was a confession time before Easter. People went to church, and coming back, everyone already knew that the Ulms had been executed. The whole family and this seventh child that was born in the grave."

Source: Zbrodnia bez kary (A Crime Unpunished), edited by K. Domagała-Pereira, B. Dudek, M. Gostkiewicz, E. Karpińska-Morek, Kraków 2022, p. 211.

"The most terrifying was how they shot the parents. For the whole village you could probably hear what I can still hear to this day - the cries of children. Quieter and quieter. Every time a shot rang out, the cries were quieter because there were fewer and fewer of them. Until they finally fell silent...".

Source: M. E. Szulikowska, Markowskie bociany.Opowieść o bohaterskiej Rodzinie Wiktorii i Józefa Ulmów (Storks from Markowa.The Story of the Heroic Family of Wiktoria and Jozef Ulma), Przemyśl 2017, p. 114.

Photo caption:

The Ulma family (from the collection of Mateusz Szpytma).

Probably Marysia, the youngest child of the Ulmas (from the collection of Mateusz Szpytma).

Children of the Ulmas (from the collection of Mateusz Szpytma).

"You are German, you are German". Germanized children

"Here, however, an attempt must be made to exclude racially valuable children from resettlement and raise them in the old Reich [...] The children involved must not be older than 8-10 years, because generally, only up to this age true transnationalization, i.e., ultimate Germanization, is possible. [...] The children will be given German names, which must also be unambiguously Germanic in origin."

Source: E. Wentzel, G. Hecht, Sprawa traktowania ludności byłych polskich obszarów z rasowo-politycznego punktu widzenia (The case of the treatment of the population of the former Polish territories from a racial-political point of view). "Biuletyn GKBZHwP," vol. IV, pp. 152-153.

Photo source:Institute of National Remembrance.

At the factory and at bauer’s. Children in forced labor in Germany

"On the second day after my arrival I felt so homesick that I couldn't utter a word. It seemed to me that I was probably going to die of pain and sorrow, but they didn't pay any attention. I lived in a room where they cooked for pigs. The place was always locked for the night. There was so much work that we couldn't keep up. Until lunch you had to herd cattle, after lunch - if not chopping wood, then in the field or forest to work. (..) Day after day we had to work hard, and eat - sometimes. (...) Even bread was always in short supply. When I asked for food, they told me that if I felt wronged, they would report me to the gendarmerie and I would be sent to the camp in Działdowo for six weeks, to be corrected there...".

Source: Account of Józef Łaszczyk. Z. Bilgorajska, Cierń mojej młodości. Wspomnienia dzieci i młodzieży z przymusowych robót w III Rzeszy (Thorns of my youth.Memories of Children and Youth from Forced Labor in the Third Reich),Warsaw 1979, p. 134.

Photo caption:

7-year-old Jan Farion, who was forcibly employed in agriculture (Foundation for Polish-German Reconciliation).

"Warsaw children, we go into battle!" Children of the Warsaw Uprising

"‘Nalecz‘ and I clung to the wall to make room for the storming vanguard. At his signal, they attacked. We ran after them, the rest of the group followed. In the courtyard, grenades exploded, machine guns barked - the German burst-fire was usually long, ours shorter. We heard single shots, thud of footsteps and the screams of the wounded. Bodies fell onto the cobblestone. Some fell, stagnant and immobile, others wriggled on the ground, wailing. Although we managed to take the Germans completely by surprise, they recovered quickly and repelled our attack. Finally, we forced them to retreat to the upper floors."

Source: B. Hryniewicz, Chłopięca wojna. Pamiętnik z Powstania Warszawskiego (Boys' War. A diary from the Warsaw Uprising), Warsaw 2018, pp. 169-170.

Photo captions:
A young soldier at the Powisle Power Plant during the Warsaw Uprising. Photo by Tadeusz Bukowski “Bończa" (Warsaw Uprising Museum).
Two teenage Warsaw insurgents walking along Tamka Street. Photo by Tadeusz Bukowski “Bończa" (Warsaw Uprising Museum).

In the taiga and steppe. Children deported to the USSR

"In Sarjam we also attended school (...). It was very cold, and there was snow on the benches. We sat with our legs bent, one next to the other, to keep warmer. There was nothing to write with and on. We wrote with a stick in the sand. When one found a pencil, we wrote on newspaper, if any were at hand. The whole class learned from one old book. Each child read one sentence at a time, that was the school."

Source: Account of Teofila Kieruzel, ASUŁ R-145.

Photo caption:

Girls from the Polish Orphanage in Bolshoy Yerba, Krasnoyarsk Krai (Sibir Memorial Museum in Białystok).

School certificate of Teofilia Kieruzel (Archives of Siberians of the University of Lodz).

Wolf cubs. Children of the Doomed Soldiers

"(...) a partisan asked how I knew the Polish language, since I was living among Lithuanians and Byelorussians. I told him that I came from Warsaw and was Polish, and that I was currently living in the village of Podwarańce with my uncle and was a full orphan. At the end of the conversation, the partisan asked: "Do you want to go with us, Polish partisans?". With complete indifference, my uncle replied in Belarusian, "Kak choczycie, to waźnijte yaho." This partisan who took an interest in me, a Polish orphan, was Marian Korejwo a.k.a. ‘Milimetr’."

Source: J. Widejko, Najmłodszy partyzant wileńskiej AK (The youngest partisan of the Vilnius Home Army), Gorlice 2014, p. 43.

Photo caption

Jerzy Widejko "Jureczek" with Gracjan Frog "Szczerbiec" (Institute of National Remembrance).