Potulice concentration camp

Potulice concentration camp
Map of UWZ Lebrechtsdorf-Potulitz after expansion. The Hansen Schneidemuehl works to the left, separated by the barbed-wire fence with six barracks where the wings of warplanes Me-109 and Me-110 were being reconditioned (Potulice Museum)
Nazi concentration camp Potulice in occupied Poland. Work brigade, pictured
Operation
Period	1 February 1941 – 21 January 1945
Prisoners	Expelees from Pomerania, forced labour: 11,188 prisoners as of 21 January 1945 officially

The Potulice concentration camp (German: UWZ Lager Lebrechtsdorf– Potulitz) was established by Nazi Germany during World War II in Potulice near Nakło on the territory of occupied Poland. Originally, until the fall of 1941 it was the subcamp of Stutthoff. In January 1942 Potulice became fully independent. It is estimated that a total of 25,000 prisoners went through the camp during its operation before the end of 1944. It became notable also as a detention centre for Polish children that underwent the Nazi experiment in forced Germanisation.

Initially the Potulice camp was one of numerous transit points for Poles expelled by the German authorities from territories of western Poland annexed into the newly created Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen. The forcible displacement of Polish nationals known as Lebensraum; was meant to create space for German colonists (the Volksdeutsche) brought in Heim ins Reich from across Eastern Europe. The facility quickly expanded to include a slave-labor subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp nearby, supplying a free workforce for the Hansen Schneidemühl machine shop set up on the premises.

The camp served as a place for detention of Polish children; of the 1,296 people who died there, 767 victims were minors. In 1943 a special unit in the camp was created especially for children and the name „Ostjugendbewahrlager Potulitz” or „Lebrechtsdorf” started to appear in German documentation. Racist theories and a policy of Germanisation that sought to Germanise children who were tested for racial purity of the supposed Aryan race traits led to organised kidnappings by German officials in occupied Poland. The children from the camp were placed there as a result of this policy. If the tests were positive and it was believed the child had lost emotional contact with their parents, then it could be sent to German families for Germanisation. This operation was organised by the SS Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt RuSHA (SS Office of Race and Settlement).