Inside of the concentration camps, the Nazis instilled reigns of terror and fear onto the
prisoners who were held inside facilities such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbruck.
Under the cover of the Second World War, millions would be killed and executed within the camps
during the Holocaust with the innocent people being driven to their deaths by the SS and
the Nazis.
Across Nazi occupied lands, huge networks of concentration camps were established, and
it was within these where guards terrorised prisoners on a daily basis.
Many guards and evil workers at the camp took part in selections, where they would be playing
god with people’s lives, practically deciding who would live another day and who would be
sent straight to their deaths.
Children were usually sent straight to the gas chambers when they arrived at places such
as Treblinka, Auschwitz and other camps as they were seen as not useful for work by the
staff of the camp.
This led to hundreds of thousands of innocent and young children being murdered within minutes
of stepping off trains.
There is one child today who is commemorated in his city of Lublin, where each year he
is celebrated as a hero, and his life is used as a story over Poland in the school system
to communicate the evils of the past.
Join us today as we look at ‘The HORRIFIC Execution of the Child Of The Holocaust, Henio
Zytomirski.’
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Born on the 25th March 1933 inside Lublin in Poland, Henio Zytomirski was the first
son of Sara and Shmuel Zytomirski.
His parents lived inside of Lublin, and his grandparents lived nearby.
Family life for the young boy was very happy, as in a number of pictures he is shown being
embraced by his father, mother and grandfather.
He began to attend kindergarten in Lublin in early September 1937, and the final photograph
ever taken of him was on the 5th July 1939 aged 6, outside of the PLO Bank found on Krakowska
Avenue in Lublin.
Over the next few months, the rhetoric across the border in Nazi Germany began to become
stronger, and it was clear that Hitler had ambitions to build his Third Reich and Empire,
and many feared that he would enter Poland and invade it to do this.
On the very day that Henio was due to start his first day at school, Nazi Germany invaded
Poland.
Following the invasion and the subsequent fall of Poland to the Nazis, inside the city
of Lublin a judenrat, an administration body established by the Nazis on the Jews was set
up.
Henio’s father was involved in this and was appointed to the body, he previously was
a teacher and a chairman of the Poale Zion movement in the city, a pro marxist workers
movement.
He then worked inside the post office as a manager, and whilst working here he was involved
in the Polish underground and he made contact with them.
He spoke with his younger brother who had moved to Palestine, and other members of the
Jewish resistance in other cities.
Things were tough inside the city for Jewish people, and a ghetto was established which
opened formally on the 24th March 1941.
With this, the Nazi German Governor of Lublin forced over 34,000 Jews into the ghetto that
was set up, and the Zytomirski’s including Henio moved to 11th Kowalska Street inside
the ghetto.
Conditions inside were tough, and it s considered that almost all of those who were imprisoned
in the ghetto were killed by the end of the Second World War.
Most of the victims were taken to the Belzec extermination camp, with around 30,000 from
the Lublin Ghetto being killed here during mass deportations.
The Germans established a quote of 1,400 prisoners to be taken to their deaths each day.
Conditions were harsh, and there was disease lurking inside and also shortages of food.
Henio’s grandfather died from typhus inside the ghetto in November 1941, and he requested
to be buried near the cemetery gate so he could see when the city was liberated and
the first to do so.
His tombstone was later destroyed by the Germans when the Jewish cemetery was liquidated.
Henio and his family continued to live inside the ghetto, until the mass deportations came
for them.
On the 16th March 1942, transports in the form of freight trains would arrive each day
to take people to extermination camps from Lublin to be killed.
The SS oversaw the transports, and Jews were selected in the square near a slaughterhouse
to be taken to their deaths.
The selections each day would ultimately be what would lead to someone living an extra
day, or not.
Those selected to be deported to extermination camps were taken from the Great Synagogue,
and were then placed onboard the trains and were transported mostly to Belzec extermination
camp.
Here its estimated that up to 600,000 Jews were murdered inside of the gas chambers here.
Many of Lublin’s jews who were sick or ill were shot on the shot or were driven into
the woods to be killed.
The Ghetto was liquidated in March and April 1942 with the deportations and killings, and
amongst them were Henio’s mother and grandmother and his aunts, who were taken to Belzec and
killed in the gas chambers there.
But on the 14th April 1942, the transports stopped.
Henio the young boy and his father somehow survived the selections, as his father had
obtained a work permit.
There were a small number of jews who stayed alive, and they were then transported to a
smaller ghetoo.
Around 8000 people entered this, but selections then began in this ghetto and the 3000 people
who did not have a work permit were then deported to Majdanek concentration camp, and then out
to a nearby forest and massacred being shot to death.
During the final liquidation of the Majdan Tatarski ghetto, Henio and his father were
sent to Majdanek concentration camp.
Upon arriving at the camp, selections took place.
It was here where the young 9 year old Henio was separated from his father.
Guards after unloading the transports, selected Henio to be killed as he was just a young
boy, and it was believed he was of no use to work inside of the camp.
Henio was selected and he was ripped away from his father, and was transported immediately
to the gas chamber.
Henio along with other children and old people was driven straight into the gas chambers
upon arrival, and his death orchestrates the true horror and evil of the holocaust.
There was no regard for life, or no regard for humanity when selections took place or
when exterminations took place.
Henio’s father continued to live and work in Majdanek Concentration Camp and he had
lost all of his family.
He did manage to escape a number of mass killings and liquidations, but Henio’s father eventually
was killed during the Holocaust.
Despite only being 9 years old when he was murdered inside of the gas chambers, Henio
Zytomirski has become a symbol and icon of the holocaust.
Today his life story is taught inside of the Polish curriculum and inside of schools, and
his short time on this earth is commemorated in a number of different ways.
Each year on the 19th April, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland, school children and citizens
of Lublin are encouraged to sent letters addressed to Henio to 11 Kowalska Street, his last known
addresss.
Each year thousands of letters are sent, and they include paintings, letters and stories
from children his age and older.
The site where the photograph of him outside of the PKO bank was taken is also covered
in letters and tributes.
At Majdanek Concentration Camp, an exhibition follows the lives of four children, and Henio
is included in this.
The story of Henio Zytomirski is a tragic and harrowing one which saw a boy of 9 being
driven into the gas chambers.
His story is one which is not alone, as during the Holocaust there were thousands of children
many much younger who were sent to their deaths.
Their stories are some of the most horrifying of the Second World War, as before the conflict
breaking out they had their whole lives ahead of them.
They had their whole futures ahead of them too, but they would never see this as the
disgusting politics and beliefs of the Nazis would steal the futures of so many from them.
The Second World War was a conflict which did not involve children, and they had no
involvement in it, but across Europe hundreds of thousands of innocent children would be
considered victims of the conflict.
The story of Henio Zytomirski must never be forgotten, along with the accounts of all
of those others who were killed at the hands of one of History’s most evil regimes.
Thanks for watching.
To support, please make sure to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.