Szlaki województw śląskiego i opolskiego

The former substitute police jail Rosengarten in Mysłowice operated between 1941 and 1945 on the grounds of today's Promenade Park. It was a Gestapo detention facility where Poles and representatives of other nationalities were held. Approximately 20,000 people passed through the jail, often subjected to brutal interrogations, torture and starvation. Prisoners usually stayed here for several months, after which many were deported to concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gross-Rosen and Ravensbrück. After the Germans withdrew in January 1945, the jail grounds were used as a communist labor camp for people suspected of collaboration. The conditions were tragic, the detained suffered from malnutrition, disease and exhaustion, and many died. The origin of the name "Rosengarten", or "Rose Garden", is not fully known. One version suggests that before the war there was a rosarium here. Another hypothesis refers to a stake filled with thorns, which during the occupation was used to torture prisoners. Currently, the jail grounds have been transformed into a park, and the memory of the victims is commemorated by a plaque unveiled in 2023, a monument and a wall imitating barracks. This place is a symbol of the repression of two totalitarianisms - Nazi and communist, and is an important historical point in Mysłowice.