Archival documents
No complete documentation regarding the functioning of Polen-Jugendverwahrlager has been preserved. It was most likely destroyed or taken by the escaping camp staff in January 1945.
The greatest number of source materials regarding the camp on Przemysłowa Street in Łódź is present in the resources of the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, which took over the documentation of the Regional Commission for the Prosecution of Hitler's Crimes.
The resources of the museum of the Tradition of Independence in Łódź features, most abundantly, letters sent by child prisoners and photographs of them.
The Jugendamt ("Youth Division") complex of the State Archive in Łódź features the "Schutzlager" file that contains the documentation regarding the camp’s functioning. The archive also includes materials collected by the History Commission of the Management Board of the Provincial Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy in Łódź.
The most important archival sources preserved include the files of investigation against the former supervisor working at the camp – Eugenia Pol (aka Genowefa Pohl) – and the files from her trial that took place during the years 1972-1975 are also present at the institute.
These files include testimonies of witnesses – former prisoners and people employed at the camp.
Documentation concerning Edward August, a guard from the German concentration camp for Polish children in Łódź (for more information, see: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/we-have-found-documents-confirming-the-identity-of-edward-august-a-criminal-from-the-camp-on-przemyslowa-street ).
Survivors' accounts regarding the youngest inmates of the camp on Przemysłowa Street. (for more information, see: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/the-youngest-polish-victims-of-totalitarian-germany ).
Opinion of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerian Crimes in Poland – Institute of National Remembrance on the camp on Przemysłowa Street (for more information, see: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/the-camp-for-polish-children-in-lodz-was-a-concentration-camp ).
Report by Lieutenant Knauer of Stasi Department VII in Berlin regarding the recruitment of Camillo Ehrlich, 12.05.1956.
Source: Bundesarchiv/Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv BArch_MfS_BV_KMSt_AP_399-56 k. 6 (for more information, see: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/torturer-of-polish-children-a-stasi-agent ).
Personal file of Gertruda Nowak (more information in the news at: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/the-personal-file-of-mrs-gertruda-nowak ).
Notice of death in the camp of Jan Tratowski, reference no. MTN-Ł/A-7407 (more information in the news at: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/78th-death-anniversary-of-janek-tratowski ).
The Germans transported the dead very early in the morning or late at night. I did not see the corpses of the dead children, but this news always reached us. - AIPN GK 165/377, Concentration camp for juveniles in Łódź (more information in the news at: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/witness-accounts-on-the-burials-of-polish-children-from-the-camp-on-przemyslowa-street ).
AIPN, Ld 503/106, prosecutor’s files pertaining to the court case against: Pol/Pohl Eugenia... Minutes of the main court session. Testimony of Brygida Casselius, March 19, 1974, vol. 2, p. 49 (more information on hygienic conditions in the camp in the news at: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/hygienic-conditions-in-polen-jugendverwahrlager-litzmannstadt ).
Project of employment and division of labour for Polish youth who will be sent to a transit camp for children (more information in the news: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/to-treat-the-tardy-with-a-whip-a-shocking-document-reveals-the-background-to-the-establishment-of-the-concentration-camp-in-przemyslowa-street ).
An excerpt from Eugenia Pol’s trial testimony (more information in the news: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/a-shocking-testimony-of-a-former-prisoner-of-the-concentration-camps-in-przemyslowa-street-and-kl-ravensbruck ).
The document found is an account of a conference that resulted in, among other things, the establishment of the German Nazi Concentration Camp for Polish Children on Przemysłowa Street in Łódź (more information in the news: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/a-shocking-document-regarding-the-establishment-of-the-nazi-german-concentration-camp-for-polish-children-in-lodz ).
Card of a commander of the German Nazi Concentration Camp for Polish Children in Łódź (more information in the news: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/we-have-learned-the-post-war-history-of-the-commandant-of-the-nazi-german-concentration-camp-for-polish-children-in-lodz).
Jan Spychała’s letters. On October 16, 1944, Jaś Spychała (aged 12) asks his mother to send him, among other things, “some saccharine”: “Fry me 20 pancakes, Mummy (…). Send me a pencil, a rubber. And onions, and mustard. And some stamps" (more information in the news: https://muzeumdziecipolskich.pl/previously-unknown-letters-sent-by-polish-children-from-the-german-camp).
Cemetery sheet of the grave of Urszula Kaczmarek, buried in the St. Wojciech Roman Catholic Cemetery in Łódź on Kurczaki Street (No. 81), issued on the 12th of May 1943, MTN-Ł, signature A-6858