The hasty Nazi retreat left Radogoszcz a smouldering shell of what once it was. It’s importance as a site of struggle and martyrdom was not lost on the locals, and work began immediately on conserving the site and turning it into a memorial for all who died and suffered. An exhibition was opened on the third anniversary of Łódź’s liberation, and on September 9, 1961 a thirty metre spire was unveiled on the site of the former camp. Four watchtowers (one of them an original), were reconstructed, and the skeletal ruins brushed up and restored. The courtyard, slightly smaller than the original, is today home to numerous artsy memorials, none of them notable for being anything more than a little hideous. A number of plaques commemorate those died within these perimeters, as well as Łódź citizens deported to Mauthausen and Dachau, while along one of the exterior walls (running by ul. Zgierska) lies the mass grave of 37 unidentified victims. A token collection of Soviet artillery is also on view, as is a boiler recovered from the smoking ruins.
The exhibition hall lies just beyond the hollow shell which once housed the factory, and though the displays are accompanied by English text it’s well worth investing 20zl on the excellent ‘A Book of Lodz Martyrdom’. The prescribed tour takes visitors through a chronological history through wartime Poland, beginning with the 1939 invasion and the subsequent battle for Łódź. Posters calling men to arms, gas masks and grenades sit behind glass cases, paying tribute to those who gallantly resisted the Nazi war machine, before giving way to numerous exhibits detailing life under fascist rule. Innocuous everyday items like beer bottles, cigarette boxes and tea cups sit alongside more sinister displays; Germanized street signs, execution lists and photos of Łódź decked out with fluttering swastikas. It looks chilling enough, but it’s not half as thought provoking as what lies in store. Beyond the initial displays are the mugshots of dozens of children seized from their parents and sent away to be ‘Germanized’ in the camp on ul. Sporna 73. Next up, a section devoted to the Jewish Ghetto, with items of note including ghetto currency and the yellow stars which all habitants were compelled to wear. Further on there’s also a display of letters from concentration camp prisoners, striped uniforms and even a bar of soap allegedly made from human fat. Your tour concludes with a couple of rooms dedicated to Radogoszcz itself. Standing centre stage are copies of a flogging block and a prisoners bunk, while clinging to the walls are the photos of hundreds of inmates, as well as team photos of cheery looking guards. None of this prepares you for the final room, however. It’s here that the events of January 18th, 1945 are remembered. The photographs of charred, burned bodies leave nothing to the imagination, while making the display all the more poignant are a collection of singed family photographs recovered from the dead.
The exhibition hall lies just beyond the hollow shell which once housed the factory, and though the displays are accompanied by English text it’s well worth investing 20zl on the excellent ‘A Book of Lodz Martyrdom’. The prescribed tour takes visitors through a chronological history through wartime Poland, beginning with the 1939 invasion and the subsequent battle for Łódź. Posters calling men to arms, gas masks and grenades sit behind glass cases, paying tribute to those who gallantly resisted the Nazi war machine, before giving way to numerous exhibits detailing life under fascist rule. Innocuous everyday items like beer bottles, cigarette boxes and tea cups sit alongside more sinister displays; Germanized street signs, execution lists and photos of Łódź decked out with fluttering swastikas. It looks chilling enough, but it’s not half as thought provoking as what lies in store. Beyond the initial displays are the mugshots of dozens of children seized from their parents and sent away to be ‘Germanized’ in the camp on ul. Sporna 73. Next up, a section devoted to the Jewish Ghetto, with items of note including ghetto currency and the yellow stars which all habitants were compelled to wear. Further on there’s also a display of letters from concentration camp prisoners, striped uniforms and even a bar of soap allegedly made from human fat. Your tour concludes with a couple of rooms dedicated to Radogoszcz itself. Standing centre stage are copies of a flogging block and a prisoners bunk, while clinging to the walls are the photos of hundreds of inmates, as well as team photos of cheery looking guards. None of this prepares you for the final room, however. It’s here that the events of January 18th, 1945 are remembered. The photographs of charred, burned bodies leave nothing to the imagination, while making the display all the more poignant are a collection of singed family photographs recovered from the dead.
