Postawy mieszkańców wschodnich powiatów dystryktu warszawskiego ratujących polskie dzieci – byłych więźniów niemieckiego obozu przejściowego w Zamościu w latach 1942–1943

Abstract

Attitudes of inhabitants of the Eastern Counties of the Warsaw District who saved child prisoners of the German transit camp in Zamość in 1942–1943 In December 1942 and in the following two winter months of 1943 during the race selection at transit camp in Zamość (UWZ-Lager Zamosc), Germans deported about 3,500 Polish children, who qualified as “racially worthless” from the camp. Most of them were separated from their parents. After a stay of several days or several weeks at the camp, having been crammed into unheated freight carriages, they arrived in six “death transports” to three poviats: Garwolin, Siedlce and Mińsk Mazowiecki, located in the eastern part of the Warsaw district. The article presents the attitudes of Poles rushing to save the children, disregarding the difficulties that occurred at that time in the face of the prolonged war and German terror. Both the inhabitants of the area known by surnames and those who are now nameless, joined the rescue operation. Their determination, commitment, and sacrifice during the relief operation that lasted for many months under the occupation up until the end of the war, deserve emphasis. Undoubtedly, it was a show of huge selflessness of people of goodwill to save the lives of innocent and defenceless Polish children from the Zamość region.