Abstract: Between 1939 and 1945, Polish children were victims of the relentless extermination policies of the Third Reich. From the beginning of WWII, they became the direct objects of Nazi Säuberaktion or “field cleansing” policy in Gdańsk Pomerania. Polish children were among the victims of mass killings in the Piaśnicki and Szpęgawski forests and, as patients of psychiatric hospitals, they were also euthanized. Together with their parents they were kept in re-location camps, one of them in Riesenburg (Prabuty) in East Prussia, from where they were transferred to labor camps in the Third Reich. Some of the children were sent to KL Stutthof, where the number of prisoners between the ages of 12 and 18 was estimated to have been above 2000. From the age of 12, Polish children were part of a slave labor force whose role was to work for the interests of the Third Reich; they were sent to KL Stutthof to receive “for upbringing” (Erziehung). They were imprisoned in KL Stutthof for their participation in the Polish resistance, or for not signing the Deutsche Volksliste (the German People's List). In concentration camps, Polish children were treated the same way as adults and just as adults they had to obey the same rules and regulations of the camp.

Keywords: euthanasia, Reichsgau Danzig Westpreussen, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Nation, Ubergangslager Riesenburg Westpreussen, re-location Camp in Prabuty, Concentration Camp Stutthof