One of the finest museums in Poland, Radogoszcz prison is a sinister look inside the Łódź's recent past. The prison (before 1939 a factory complex) was used from 1939-45 as place of detention and torture for those Poles the Nazis declared 'dangerous.‘ Those held here included most of Łódź‘s intelligentsia, Polish socialists and communists, as well as captured officers of the Polish army. Ten‘s of thousands of people were held here during the war; the capacity was about 2,000 at any one time, and conditions were awful. Around a quarter of all inmates were summarily tried and executed here, while others starved to death or died as a result of prolonged torture. Many others were shipped from here to the death camps of Chełmno and, later, Auschwitz. Much of the prison was burnt down on the eve of liberation, with many of the prisoners still locked inside. The exhibition contains the story behind wartime Łódź, from the opening days of war, to life under Nazi occupation; on display everything from Hitler Youth ID papers to fly posters declaring parks to be ‘For German‘s Only‘. Other sections deal with the children caught up in the maelstrom, with a particularly disturbing photo montage of children seized from their parents and taken away for ‘Germanization‘. Next up, a section devoted to the Jewish Ghetto, with prisoners uniforms and belongings on display. Curiously everything comes with surprisingly decent, if not brief, English descriptions; everything that is apart from the final room which is dedicated to the prison itself. Pick up one of English books at the entrance to learn more. Even if you fail to do so the photographs of prisoners, instruments of torture and belongings recovered from the ashes of the fire - including family photos and charred spectacles - paint a grim picture of those sinister times. 

Admission free.