Starachowice

Members of the Boys were slave labourers in the Starachowice labour camp in Poland.

The labour camp in Starachowice was set up and run by Nazi Germany.

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

History

In December 1939, the munitions factory of the Starachowice Mining Company was taken over by the Hermann Goering Werke.

When the Starachowice Ghetto was liquidated in October 1942, the Jews in the ghetto who had been selected to work were taken to the Julag I labour camp. Those Jews who had been working in the armaments factories were also moved to Julag I.  

^{Harry Chandler}

“Our column was marched away under heavy guard to the camp that was made ready for us about five kilometres away. But first we all stopped at a place where a German officer made a speech and ordered that all the money and valuables were to be surrendered and placed in a huge box on the site. All lined up to throw in their valuables. After a few people passed, they were asked if they had fully complied and then they were searched. If they were found to have something hidden, they were shot in front of all of us as an example. This of course put fear into the rest of us and we gave up everything. A few weeks later I found a hundred-zloty note still hidden in my jacket that my mother had sewn in. Luckily, I was not searched.”

Howard Chandler quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Boys: The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1996).

Chandler was 14 years old when he was held in the camp. His brother Harry was 16 years old. The Wajchandler brothers were at this stage with their father who was able to protect his sons to a degree.

About 8,000 Jews passed through Julag I. In the summer of 1943, a typhus epidemic cost many lives and the prisoners working in the factories were moved to yet another camp, called Julag II. About 5,000 prisoners passed through Julag II altogether and 7% were shot or died of typhus.

Structure

The labour camp was made up of two camps consisting of wooden barracks, each surrounded by barbed wire. One camp was located in Majówka, and the other at the shooting range. About 4,000 people were imprisoned in the camps – 2,000 in each.

During its time of operation hundreds of people held in the camp were shot. Eventually the camp at the shooting range was liquidated. At the same time, Jews from Radom, Warsaw and also from Austria were brought to the camp. At the turn of 1943-1944, the Majówka camp was liquidated, and the remaining 2,000 prisoners were transferred to a newly established camp inside the plant.

Dissolution

After an attempted escape on 25 July 1944, the prisoners who attempted to escape were shot and the remaining prisoners moved in freight wagons to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Aftermath

Mass graves were discovered during the construction of a bypass in the city which was then diverted so the graves were not disturbed.