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The Potulice concentration camp was established during World War II by German state in occupied Poland in Potulice near Nakła. It is notable as a detention center for Polish children that were undergone the Nazi experiment in forced Germanisation.

Beginnings

Initially the Potulice camp was a transit point for Poles expelled by German authrority from the areas annexed as Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen.

The camp later served as place for detention of Polish children, which were 767 victims among 1296 people who died there. In 1943 a special unit in the camp was created especially for children and the name „Ostjugendbewahrlager Potulitz” or „Lebrechtsdorf” started to appear in German documentation. The children from the camp were placed there as a result of organised kidnappings by German officials in occupied Poland and as part of Nazi policy of Germanisation and racist theories that sought to Germanise children that tasted for racial purity of they alledged aryan traits. If the tests were positive an it was believed the child lost emotional contact with their parents it could be sent to German families for Germanisation. This operation was organised by SS Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt RuSHA (SS Office of Race and Settlement).

Slave work and punishment

As part of camp life the children were forced to perform slave work. Those who ended twelve years, were sent to work outside the camp, even on night shifts. Under the supervision of kapo they usually were used to carry building materials, stones, or load coal, wood, potatos on railway station. Children above six years were forced to work inside the camp. Even little disobedience or failure to work as ordered was faced with brutal punishment. For example when they were sent to pick up berries, after the work they had to show their mouth and if any child had signs of eating them, he would be quickly beaten by a heavy whip used for bulls. Punishment like standing in the rain, or on cones of pines was commonplace. Regardless of the season of the year all the children were forced to stand for hours in appeals in their underwear and often without shoes.

One child recalled his ordeal in the camp: Out of hunger I together with my six year old friend decided to take two or three potatos, which we wanted to roas in an oven. This was seen by some German out of the guardhouse, who ran after us. After taking the potatos from us we were taken to the guardhouse and there Germans had beaten us severly. We were hit by leather whips, and during this beating I fainted. I regained consciousness as a result of enourmous pain I felt. I realised that Germans are holding me in place and one of them is borrowing a hole in my leg with a heated iron rod. I started to scream and fainted again

Children were also beaten with cane in the face, imprisoned in bunker for days that was filled with water till their knees, or denied food. The sight of dying prisoners who couldn’t fend off rats attacking them was also a traumatic experience for many. German guards also engaged in psychological torture, for example putting the starving children near tables on which bread, cabbage, cereals were put and taking photos, after which the food was taken away from the children. The camp was used also for involuntary blood donations from the young children. It should be noted that there were children born in the camp, and as result faced a harsh fate as their exhausted mothers weren’t able to feed them, and the food rations were always in short supply. As a result infants born in the camp usually weighted around 1 kilo and died after a few weeks.

Increased brutality in the camp

As the war went on the conditions in camp became even more brutal and harsh, and penalties such as standing on broken glass were intruduced. In 1943 a transport of 543 children from region of Smolensk and Vitebsk arrived. Some of the children were treated as normal prisoners, even when they were as little as two year. As they were ill from Typhoid fever, Germans placed them in seperate barracks in primitive conditions that were seperated by barbared wire. In 1944 the conditions in the camp reached their most brutal phase, children were regularly called „children of bandits” beaten and kicked by personal of the camp, forced to dig trenches. Most of them have fallen ill, and many died out of exhaustion, mistreatment, hunger or disease. Infants were taken of by elder children. They are also witness statements about deliberate murder of children by personel of the camp. One witness described in detail how he had seen three children approximately 7 years old being drown by Germans near the camp. According to him Germans first threw the children into a water canal and then threw bricks at them looking satisfied.

Assessment

Out of acts listed as genocide by The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, all were implemented in Potulice camp, except the one stating about preventing births along members of the group. The number of children kidnapped by German authorities during their occupation of Poland in World War 2 in order to be Germanised ranges from 50,000 to 200,000. It's estimated that at least 10.000 of them were murdered in the process, and only 10-15% returned to their families after the war. The camp was formally listed as transit camp after the war, but at the request of its victims, it was classifed as concentration camp in 90s, with Polish Institute of National Remembrance, taking the stance that conditions there didn't differ from those in regular concentration camps, the decision was important for the status of compensation paid by post-war Germany towards victims of German repression.

See also

• Germanisation
• Genocide
• Lebensborn
• Polonophobia
• Subhuman
• World War II atrocities in Poland
• Ubermensch
• Lebensraum

Sources

• Polish IPN Bulletin, Issue 12-1(December-January) 2003/2004, Alicja Paczoska Dzieci Potulic.

• World War II crimes in Poland
• Nazi concentration camps
• History of Germany
• History of Poland