Abstract: The subject of this article is the martyrdom of Polish children during the period of German occupation, 1939–1945. The crimes that Germans committed on children on Polish soil have usually been described within a broader context and this specific subject has not been thoroughly discussed to date. It has been embedded in the general context of war crimes, and it is also worth noting that historians have focused on the infanticides of Jewish children. As for the ordeal of Polish children, worthy of note is the literature on the “Children of Zamojszczyzna”. Polish children at large, however, remain to an extent the forgotten victims of the war. Many of those crimes were never punished or were even utterly ignored by German courts. Therefore, remembrance of those past atrocities not only fills a historiographical gap but can also be seen as a duty to the youngest victims of the war.
Keywords: The Second World War, War crimes, Polish children, extermination, German Occupation
Word War II was an event without a precedence in history, the main reason for this being its total nature. In earlier martial doctrines, the goal of the army was the destruction of the enemy's military capability, control over its territory, access to its natural resources etc. The war that broke out in September 1939 in Poland was waged with the aim of destroying the Polish nation and reconstructing the social order according to the dogmas of National Socialism.
Hitler clearly declared his plans for the destruction of Polish society. On August 22nd, 1939, he ordered his soldiers to kill all Poles without mercy – men, women and children alike – because it was the only way for Germans to gain their lebensraum (Lucas, 2012, p. 25).On another occasion he reminded his subordinates that the war they were waging was supposed to be a “war of annihilation” (Lucas, 2012, p. 26). These are only a few examples of Hitler's statements, proving that Polish children were not accidental victims of the war. They suffered according to a precise plan.