Pölitz

Members of the Boys were slave labourers in the Pölitz labour camp, a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Sachsenhausen concentration camp was operated by Nazi Germany. The camp had 92 subcamps. 

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

^{Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen, Germany.}

The Pölitz labour camp was a synthetic-fuel plant.

History

Pölitz was at the time the camp functioned part of Germany but is now Police in Poland, 10km from present-day Szczecin. It strategically placed between the Baltic Sea port and the Silesian coal mines that could be transported by river and train.

The industrial plant Hydrierwerke Pölitz AG opened in 1937 and was jointly owned by IG Farben, Rhenania-Ossag, and a German subsidiary of Standard Oil. It produced fuel for the German army. The fuel played a crucial role in the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

The plant was badly bombed in Allied raids in which a number of prisoners were killed. About 13,000 prisoners died at the site.

Aftermath

The Red Army forces scavenged the plant for metals and dismantled most of the former camps, erasing evidence of Nazi crimes in the process. The site was then abandoned and is now in ruins. Subsequently, the area was transferred to the Polish authorities and designated as military land.

Post-war efforts to clean up the site for potential reuse were abandoned due to the presence of unexploded bombs and chemical pollution.