Dzierżązna is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the administrative district of Gmina Zgierz, within

Zgierz County __NOTOC__ Zgierz County ( pl, powiat zgierski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms p ...

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship (also known as Lodz Province, or by its Polish name ''Województwo łódzkie'' ) is a province-voivodeship in central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Łódź Voivodeship (1975–1999) and the Sieradz ...

, in central Poland. It lies approximately north of

Zgierz Zgierz is a city in central Poland, located just to the north of Łódź, and part of the metropolitan area centered on that city. As of 2021 it had a population of 54,974. Zgierz is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship (since 1999); previousl ...

and north of the regional capital

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

World War II

Before the Nazi German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

in 1939, Dzierżązna was the location of a large estate owned by two lawyers from

, with a spacious

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

built by one of them. Poles were evicted within months and the property taken over by a ''

Volksdeutsch In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of ''volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sing ...

'' Alfred Krinke from ''

Selbstschutz ''Selbstschutz'' (German for "self-protection") is the name given to different iterations of ethnic-German self-protection units formed both after the First World War and in the lead-up to the Second World War. The first incarnation of the ''Selb ...

''. In 1942 the manor house was appropriated by the German police, who established a

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

on premises for Polish girls 8–16 years of age. Polish children in Nazi-German labor camp in Dzierżązna

The girls' camp was a sub-camp of the main camp for Polish children in

called '' Kinder-KZ Litzmannstadt'' (full name in german: Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei in Litzmannstadt), operated from January 1943 till January 1945. The adjacent fields in Dzierżązna were cultivated by Polish children to supply produce for the main concentration camp in the city averaging 1,600 Polish

child labour Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...

ers.The camp for Polish children Przemystowa Street (Gewerbestrasse)
Lodz-Ghetto.com homepage. Polish girls were prepared in Dzierżązna for slave labour on German farms in the Reich, under the command of ''SS Aufseherin'' (b.1903-hanged 12 November 1945 Poland). She is known to have killed at least one of the little girls, named Urszula Kaczmarek, by flogging her to death in front of other children. The camp and sub-camp were the only complex of its kind established in

occupied Poland ' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...

. Other similar camps existed only in

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dzierzazna, Lodz Voivodeship Villages in Zgierz County