back...80th Anniversary of the Demonstration Funeral of the "Children of Zamojszczyzna"

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the demonstration funeral organized by residents of Siedlce for the "Children of Zamojszczyzna" who died during one of the transports.

From the end of November 1942 to August 1943, the Germans carried out "Akcja Zamość," during which they displaced the inhabitants of Zamojszczyzna in two stages. The place of the Poles was then taken by Germans brought from the East, and the inhabitants of Zamojszczyzna were sent to resettlement or concentration camps. It is estimated that a total of about 110,000 people were deported from Zamojszczyzna as part of the criminal action, 30,000 of whom were children.

"It is estimated that of the 30,000 children who were deported, about 10,000 died, and about 4,500 were destined for Germanization," the historians report.

We know from eyewitness accounts that the transport with children displaced from the Zamojszczyzna region also reached the German camp for Polish children on Przemysłowa Street in Łódź.

"One transport from June 1944 stands out in my memory. On June 6, 1944, a 10-car transport of children from the Zamojszczyzna region arrived at the camp. I saw one of the guards kill a little boy. He pulled his victim, who was about 10 years old, out of the wagon by his hair and banged his head against the edge of the sidewalk. The boy died instantly. I know that this transport stayed in the camp for only a few hours. The next day there was no trace of these people. I don't know what happened to them,” said Czesław Werner, a former prisoner of the German concentration camp for Polish children on Przemysłowa Street in Łódź.

One of the transports was destined for Siedlce, but due to inhumane conditions, some of the underage prisoners died on the way to the camp. As a sign of opposition to the cruelty of the Germans, on February 3, 1943, the residents of Siedlce organized a demonstration funeral for the underage victims displaced from Zamojszczyzna.