Friday, 28 December 2012

The Children's Concentration Camp, Zwierzyniec, Eastern Poland

On Christmas Day, me, my wife and father-in-law visited a church commrmmorating a Children's Concentration Camp from the 2nd World War in/near Zwierzyniec in eastern Poland:



Yes, it's difficult to get your head round, but the Nazis actually had a concentration camp for Polish children in this area of Poland.  From many Western politically 'correct' accounts of the 2nd World War, you get the false impression that only Jews were killed in the concentration camps in Poland, something that many Polish people quite rightly feel angry about, as many Poles and other Slavs (non-Jews) were slaughtered in the Nazi extermination camps.


Inside the church commemorating the children's concentration camp, there is actually a small model of the camp blocks that housed the small (often infant) inhabitants:


Just above this model of the concentration camp for children, there is a painting of the Catholic martyr saint of Auschwitz, St. Maximilian Kolbe:



When I visited Auschwitz I at Oswięcim, I was shown both the underground chambers where the Jews were gassed, and the shooting range where many Poles and other Slavs were shot.  What particularly shocked me were the many empty blocks and massive lists of names devoted to Serbs who were slaughtered at Auschwitz Oswięcim (I'm talking about Auschwitz I here, not Auschwitz II at Birkenau), something you never hear of in Britain.

Still, this was Christmas Day after all, and there was a manger inside the church to remind us all of this:



Always loved the story of the Three Wise Men of the East.




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