Introduction

This chapter presents the history of the Security Police Preventive Camp for Polish Youth in Łodź (Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei In Litzmannstadt) located at 72 Przemysłowa street during the years 1942 –1945. The tragedy of Polish children during World War II is a subject that requires further analysis and research, mainly due to the fact that most of the wartime documentation has been destroyed.

One of the first people to describe the experiences of children was Maria Niemyska-Hessenowa, an educator who, after the liberation of Łodź, came across former camp prisoners staying in the City Emergency Care. Her research resulted in an article, M. Niemyska-Hessenowa, Dzieci z „Lagru” w Łodzi (Children of the Łodź Lager), “Służba Społeczna” 1946, no. 1 (Wasiak, 1998, p. 153). Data on the German camp for Polish youth in Łodź included in academic publications dating back to early 1960s. With time, the original extremely incomplete documentation expanded, providing a more comprehensive image of the tragic events. Substantive information was provided by the trial of one of the camp officers, Eugenia Pohl, which took place in the 1970s in the Provincial Court in Łodź. Information collected at that time was used to determine the camp's characteristics. During the process, substantive evidence was collected, including original German documentation, which enabled researchers to answer a number of questions (Hrabar, 1979, p. 113).