The Nazi Camp for Polish Children in Łódź

Written by Rory Thornfield

In December 1942, on the outskirts of the Łódź ghetto, an institution was established whose existence remained on the margins of historical memory for decades. The German camp for Polish children operated for over two years, becoming a place of suffering for thousands of the youngest, whose only guilt was their nationality and age. The history of this place demonstrates how a totalitarian system could transform childhood into an instrument of repression.

The Genesis of the Camp Within the Occupation Reality

The establishment of the camp in Łódź was part of the broader context of Nazi policy toward the population of conquered territories. The Germans systematically built a network of isolation facilities designed to achieve both political and ideological goals. The concept of separating Polish children from German youth stemmed from racist doctrine, according to which contact with „racially inferior” elements could „contaminate” Aryan youth.

The choice of location was not accidental. The area carved out from the Jewish ghetto on Przemysłowa Street was a space already used for isolation purposes. The proximity of the Jewish cemetery gave the place additional symbolic dimension – a space of death bordered a space of imprisonment. High walls topped with barbed wire cut the children off from the outside world, creating a hermetic enclave of control.

The official name Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei sounded technical and bureaucratic, concealing the true nature of the place. The Germans deliberately used euphemisms to mask the repressive character of the institution. Placing the camp under Security Police management testified to its importance in the system of occupation social control.

Commandant Karl Ehrlich, an SS officer with the rank of Sturmbannführer, represented the typical pattern of a Nazi functionary. His responsibility for the camp’s operation meant direct supervision over a system of terror directed at the youngest. The hierarchy of power in the camp reflected the general principles of Third Reich structures – strict discipline, brutal methods, no space for humanity.

Mechanisms of Deportation and Criteria for Detention

The formal pretext for placing children in the camp was their alleged „demoralization” and potential threat to German youth. In practice, the criteria were much simpler and more arbitrary. Polish identity itself constituted sufficient reason for arrest – ethnic origin determined a child’s fate regardless of their actual behavior.

The category of „vagrancy” encompassed any situation where a child was found on the street without adult supervision. In occupation conditions, when parents had been killed, arrested, or forced into slave labor, thousands of children remained without care. What under normal circumstances would be a social problem requiring assistance became, in Nazi reality, grounds for deportation.

Repression directed at parents automatically affected their offspring. Children of people engaged in the resistance movement, arrested for underground activity, or deported for labor ended up in the camp as a „preventive threat.” The system of collective responsibility extended to the youngest generation, punishing them for the deeds or views of their guardians.

Accusations of petty theft – often desperate attempts to obtain food under starvation conditions – also led to detention. Orphanhood, instead of evoking compassion and activating care mechanisms, became a reason for isolation. In the occupier’s logic, a child deprived of parental supervision automatically became an undesirable element requiring internment.

Internal Structure and Organization of Prisoner Labor

The camp was divided into two separate sections by gender, which was standard practice in total institutions. The separation of boys and girls was meant to maintain order and facilitate control. In 1943, the system was expanded with a branch in Dzierżązna, where young female prisoners were exploited for work on farms. This exploitation of child labor fit into the overall economic policy of the Third Reich, which treated the population of occupied territories as a reservoir of cheap labor.

Children were forced into various tasks – from production in needle workshops to weaving straw shoes. Older female prisoners sewed and mended military uniforms, directly supporting the war machine that had destroyed their childhood. This labor had no educational or developmental character – it was simple exploitation, extracting maximum utility from helpless victims.

The internal punishment system was based on food deprivation, beatings, and isolation in a „punishment company.” These repressive methods applied to children as young as two years old demonstrate the ruthlessness of the regime. Hunger as a disciplinary tool was particularly cruel – in conditions of chronic malnutrition, withdrawing meager food rations directly threatened life.

Sanitary conditions in the camp were catastrophic. Overcrowding, lack of proper hygiene, and access to clean water facilitated the spread of infectious diseases. Epidemics of typhus and measles claimed dozens of young lives. The absence of medical care in the face of mass illness transformed the camp into a place of slow extermination.

Death Toll and Legal Epilogue

Over more than two years of operation, between two and three thousand children passed through the camp. It is estimated that approximately two hundred of them never left the place alive. Mortality was highest in 1944, during the peak of the epidemic – at that time, two to four young people died each week. In some periods, the number of prisoners reached twelve hundred, which given scarce resources and deliberately poor living conditions led to humanitarian catastrophe.

The causes of death were multiple, but all resulted from systematic, planned harm. Hunger, disease, beatings, epidemics – each of these causes was a consequence of conscious decisions by camp administrators. These were not accidental deaths, but the result of a policy that treated Polish children as less valuable and deprived of the right to basic care.

After liberation, the bodies of deceased children were buried at the cemetery on Kurczaki Street. This act of symbolic restoration of dignity to the victims could no longer reverse the harm inflicted. The final resting place of the youngest prisoners became a silent witness to a crime long suppressed in official historical narrative.

Justice, though delayed and incomplete, reached some perpetrators to a certain extent. In 1945, a court sentenced several „educators” responsible for camp conditions to death. The term „educator” in reference to people torturing children sounds like macabre irony. Much later, in 1974, Genowefa Pohl, one of the supervisors, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. These sentences, though symbolic, could not restore life to victims or erase the trauma of survivors.

Material Traces and the Dimension of Memory

The camp was liquidated on January 18, 1945, shortly before the Red Army entered Łódź. To this day, fragments of its buildings have survived – the commandant’s building, warehouse, and several other structures. These material remnants constitute a physical trace of the crime and serve as a warning against forgetting.

Research conducted by the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Hitler’s Crimes made it possible to document the scale of the tragedy and identify the guilty. The work of historians and investigators restored memory of a place that for years functioned on the margins of social consciousness. Testimonies of survivors and archival documents create a mosaic depicting life and death in the camp.

The history of the Łódź camp for children shows that a totalitarian system spares not even the youngest. Mechanisms of exclusion, isolation, and destruction affected victims from the moment of birth. Memory of this place reminds us that crimes against humanity always have concrete victims – in this case, thousands of Polish children who paid for their nationality with their childhood, health, and often their lives.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rory Thornfield

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Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.

His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.

Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.

Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.