District XVIII Nearest city Frankfurt am Main in the west of Germany. 37 officers held here as of 26/2/43 originally opened September 1941. Red Cross inspection reports identified Oflag IV-C as a problem camp with inadequate sanitary and harsh confinement measures. On 4 February 1945 some 3,000 men evacuated from Stalag Luft III arrived at Marlag-Milag. The main Dulag Luft camp at Frankfurt was the principal collecting point for intelligence derived from Allied POW interrogation. Director: They are buried in the cemetery near the centre of the village of Dossel. Also listed as 'Gavi-Serravalle Scrivia Piedmont'. Allied reference number for this camp was P-2553. 94 min Stars: When U.S. troops liberated Colditz in April 1945, 31 prisoners had successfully reached home after more than 300 attempts. The castle, that overlooks the town of Colditz in Saxony . Opened September 1943 and closed a month later. Hello, Twice as many KL inmates were then housed in, the already overcrowded, British POW barracks here. Drama, Sport, War. Stars: Ian Hendry, A very well researched and invaluable insight into the escape and the nature of the men who carried it out. They give details of name, rank and service/army number as well as regiment/corps, prisoner of war number and, presumably, the camp location when the register was made. Stalag was short for Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager. Stalag IV-A Hohnstein (Airfield at Dresden-Klotsche) (No Base Camps: 13 Work Camps) Saxony Location N/E 51-14. Nearest Village Lauta, 85 British POWs here. The fourth building was for the interrogating offices, files and records. There may be more up to date location references via Wikipedia articles, however. Colditz Castle, in eastern Germany, was built high on the slope of a hill and the Germans believed it was escape-proof.Throughout the war, they sent their most difficult POWs there. Other than the aforementioned, a fee of 100 Swiss francs (currently 67) is charged per hour per research, this only applies to records over 60 years old. We offer the services of a professionally accredited researcher who visits the archives daily, should you wish to seek this assistance. The Senior British Officer at Campo 78 was Lt Col Munro of the 2/3rd Anti-Tank Regiment AIF. 101 min Some larger camps will have dozens of websites that you can investigate, always look at the links pages from these sites also a spiders web of information can often be discovered. The Germans found spoil from the tunnel and searched the camp, but failed to find it. 161 officers were held here on 26/2/43 and it opened originally in June 1941. Opened originally in May 1942, 180 other ranks were reported here on December30th 1942.. Near Perugia, Fornaci Briziarelli brick factory, POWs also worked on the Todi Orvieto road construction. The camp was opened as Oflag VII-D in February 1941, but in November 1941 became a sub-camp of Oflag VII-C, and was redesignated Oflag VII-C/Z. Stalag IV-D/Z Annaburg (Formerly Oflag 54.E) Sachsen, Prussia Location N/E 51-13, Stalag IV-F + Work Camps Hartmannsdorf-Chemnitz Saxony Location N/E 51-12. The pretty astonishing escape attempts make for a core theme here, and his depictions of the main players really sparks up the narrative--as Macintyre has achieved in his earlier works. This scene was photographed by the Germans as "evidence" and later reprinted in his biography (Mark of the Lion, by Kenneth Sandford). A limited number of non-commissioned soldiers working as orderlies were allowed in Oflags to carry out the work needed to care for the officers so dont be too surprised to find a Corporal in Colditz! A few hours later the German army arrived at the camp and the inmates were marched to trains that were to take them to Germany. It is now a tourist attraction and I signed up for a guided tour of the castle and grounds, learning more about its time as the Escapers Gaol, which spurred me on to write this blog, using official records at The National Archives. Tran Van Khe, Approved 116 min | Due to various adverse factors, there were few successful escapes in the South East Asia theatre of war. Colditz Castle 1943. In particular, the memoir of British Army officer . April 1943: Part of the camp was turned into a hospital for POWs. Many of them were finally repatriated towards the end of 1945 though the port of Odessa on the Black Sea. IWM collections. In German-run camps an 'Oflag' was a prisoner of war camp for officers, a 'Stalag' was for enlisted personnel, and there were also separate camps for the navy, aircrews and civilians. Two visits by the Red Cross were made and the following comments were made: "Tented Camp in two sections with no Heating or lighting. A harrowing account of the forced marches from some of the easternmost POW camps during the last days of the war. 'Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle' by Ben Macintyre NJ McGarrigle October 08 2022 02:30 AM The inmates of Colditz Castle in Germany might have thought their war was over upon capture, but a. The camp was liberated on 2 May 1945 by troops of the British 2nd Army. A very large camp with over 10,000 prisoners. PG60 was then closed. Allied prisoners - British, Dutch, French and Polish - pool their resources to plan numerous escapes from the "escape-proof" German P.O.W. Many died from a typhus epidemic and from hunger. They worked predominately on farms and had the possibility to obtain better nourishment. It held Norwegian officers captured in 1942 and 1943. Sylt camp held Jewish enforced labourers. | The escapers, including Day, Buckley, Johnnie Dodge and future Carry on Film star Peter Butterworth were all recaptured within a week. They also organized the dates of escapes so that one group did not interfere with another. The barracks were enclosed by a barbed-wire fence and watchtowers to form a camp approximately 440 by 530 metres, and was opened in June 1940 to house officers, mostly French, captured in the Battle of France, as well as several hundred Poles. They performed a variety of heavy earthworks, roadbuilding, agricultural work, and were also worked on the construction of freight railway station Olechowo and others. It was designed to hold 10,000 men, was the largest in the 3rd Military District, and was considered a model for other camps. In December 1942 were as many as 19,459 Soviet POWs. In March 1945 two bombs dropped by a Soviet aircraft hit Block B killing eight POWs, and injuring several others. The tunnel was completed in May, and on the night of 3/4 June 1943 sixty-five men escaped. Over 5,000 Allied merchant seamen were captured by German forces during the Second World War, most of whom were at some time held at the camp Marlag und Milag Nord, Westertimke, near Bremen, Germany, (Marlag held Royal Navy personnel and Milag Merchant seamen). In March 1941, the Wehrmacht began constructing the camp in the northwest of Austria, between Innsbruck and Salzburg, the nearest railway station was Bishopshofen. The Polish POWs were transferred to other camps on 1 June 1940 and Oflag II-D was established to house French officers from the Battle of France. They were employed building new barracks and a water supply. After some time the officers were separated out and placed initially in the garages of the adjoining German Army armoured division. POWs hired out to military and civilian contractors were supposed to receive pay and to get a least one day a week of rest. 7 & 8 & 26 & 27 - RA (coast & searchlight) MP corps, Savoy Hotel, Bournemouth. | Gross: The POW bet on the races, and money was raised and donated to the Red Cross. Marlag und Milag Nord was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp complex for men of the British Merchant Navy and Royal Navy. In March, 1200 French prisoners were brought to Colditz Castle, with 600 more being imprisoned in the town below. Stalag Luft II Litzmannstadt (Lodz -Poland), Camp for Soviet pilots in the district Litzmannstadt'u - Erzhausen (Lodz region today called Ruda Pabianicka at the south-western area of the city), the square of the current streets Oder (German Wallensteinerstrasse, from the south-west) Retmanskiej (German Paracelsusweg; from the north-west.) This was the POW camp next door to Auschwitz death camp and the inmates of Auschwitz frequently worked alongside British POWs on this work detail. (7 days confined arrest, 7-13 Dec 1941). When the Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands they were short on material for uniforms, so they confiscated anything available. In 1933 it was established as one of the first Nazi concentration camps, to house German communists. By September 1940 the prisoners at the camp were mainly French, with 100 officers up the rank of colonel, and 28 generals. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from The camp was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with seven watchtowers. However many of them were located in sub-camps. 5879272 Sergeant C H Jones Pioneer Regiment died 15/8/1942. Opened in February 1942 &built with a brand new stone barracks for the incoming POWs. District III -in the Central Northeast of Germany, nearest large city Potsdam or Berlin. In October 1942 the camp was repopulated with Jews and run by the infamous Amon Goth (Later the commandant of Plaszow KZ concentration camp) this had many thousands of Jews brought here from the Warsaw Ghetto, and these were the Jewish families (men, women and children) who were working for various German run firms in the locale, particularly the Toebbens uniform factory. According to SHAEF reports from February 1945 this camp held: 275 Soviets and 2014 Yugoslavs. Logistical problems meant that this part of the camp was administered by the Luftwaffe, the rest of the camp being under the Wehrmacht. Most of them headed south, towards Switzerland, sleeping by day and travelling by night. In the camp there were eight medical officers, the seriously ill were treated in the prison hospital in Stargard. The report also confirms which permanent camps the POW was held in, making this record fairly definitive. Terms of Service apply. It served as the hospital for all Soviet POWs in the region until January 1945. All of the photos of individuals from camps in this tutorial were taken from this collection unfortunately, none of the men's' names is recorded in these articles. On April 27, 1942, all the Poles were transferred to other camps, mostly to Oflag VII-A Murnau. Consequently the Germans were able to capture them all. At this point, I should stop being surprised. District XV Nearest city Strasbourg, now in France. The French and British did set up language lessons between themselves and some sport was played within the confines of the castle. Use on websites that are primarily information-led, research-oriented and not behind a paywall. Many of them died from the bitter cold and exhaustion. A simple list of (mostly) British or Commonwealth war films about prisoners of war. Only Dutch officers and a few Soviet officers remained. I.e. Stalag XIII-D Nrnberg Langwasser was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp built on what had been the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg, northern Bavaria. Several escape attempts, one successful on March 29th 1943 - Six British and New Zealand officers escaped through a tunnel from Castello di Vincigliata (Campo 12) near Florence, Italy. I loved the way he explores the culture of the camp as well, looking at the ways race and sexuality and class defined the war experience of so many. He relates stories of British, Polish, and French prisoners, and . It took them over eight hours to escape from the grounds. The first prisoners, 140 Polish officers, arrived in 1939 and the castle was officially renamed as Oflag IV-C. 2928797 Private Walter Murray Queens Own Cameron Highlanders died 13/8/1942 Stalag II-D Stargard Pomerania, Prussia Location N/E 53-15. Brian Keith, Peter Parker, The Geneva convention comprised a few other agreements made concerning Prisoners of war, notably the Hague regulations of 1899 and 1907 and the pre-war version which was initially signed on July 27th 1929. In 1942 the first Soviet prisoners arrived at the camp, and in 1943 after the armistice, Italian prisoners arrived. Clothing was misfit being the most dominant, gathered from what they could; the German government provided no clothing. Many escaped but most were returned to the prison. Collective alphabetical listings of POWs (as opposed to individual pouches) are contained in BT 373/3717-3722. | Campo PG 65, had been established in March at Gravina, about thirty miles inland from Bari. Director: Another British Jewish inmate was Lt J M Barnet, Royal Engineers, [14] who was captured in November 1940, arrived in Colditz (re Chancellor's list) on Aug. 4 th 1941 and was repatriated to Britain on 6/9/44 with feigned illness and so counts as an "escaper". Initially, in the autumn of 1940, the camp was occupied by some 70 officers coming from the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Colditz, the medieval castle, located in the state of Saxony in Germany, is probably the most famous of the Nazi's POW camps in WWII.so well known that films have been made about it (although usually fictional). The Red Cross arranged them following the provisions of the third Geneva convention of 1929. The main part of the camp consisted of four large wooden barracks, two of which were connected by a passage and known to POWs as the "cooler". To make room for them many of the Poles were forced to give up their status as POWs and become civilian slave labourers. Relocated to Biberach, housed mainly French and Serbo-Croat officers. A large number of the inmates made their way to the Swiss frontier and were interned when the Italian guards abandoned their posts after the armistice in 1943. 62,322 POWs (3,606 British) with 2695 officers held here. In spring of 1943 American personnel captured in the Tunisia Campaign arrived. It was carried out by French and Polish prisoners. Sagan became one of the most active escape camps of WWII and a constant thorn in the Nazis side. It was then renumbered Oflag XII-B. Although individuals are rarely mentioned by name, a speculative search of files in these record series may still prove fruitful. P.G. Work on the camp began in October 1939 when 500 Polish prisoners from the September campaign arrived to build the camp, and who lived initially in tents. Located at Hadamar, near Limburg an der Lahn in western Germany. Soviet prisoners, without the Convention's protection, were in substantially worse conditions. Some of the Dutch prisoners escaped when en route to Neubrandenburg camp via train by jumping from the boxcars and managed to get home. In Germany, only those POWs from Britain, France, the Low Countries, the US, the Commonwealth and a few selected other countries were treated with any reference to the Geneva Convention's rules. It was intended to hold up to 20,000 Soviet POWs and was one of three such camps in the area. The Colditz Association is now the Colditz Society. On 24 July, 68 Dutch officers arrived, mostly members of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, who had refused to sign a declaration that they would take no part in the war against Germany. Infrastructure of the camp consisted of four two-storey blocks, a gymnasium, two administrative buildings, four garages, and a large parade ground. 145 Terramo (Campotosto / Montorio al Vomano). The camp at Mahrisch-Trubau contained around 2,000 officers, mostly British captured in North Africa and the Greek Islands, but there were also numbers of Greek, French and American POW. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Ninth Army on 12 April 1945. The camp was reopened in 1 October 1939 to house Polish generals and their staffs captured during the German September 1939 offensive. In the third section were 8,000 civilian prisoners in appalling conditions, described in the Army medical history as "utterly horrifying"; "everywhere the dead and dying sprawled amid the slime of human excrement.". The camp opened in May 1941 as Oflag 68, but was renamed Stalag I-F in June 1942. On that morning many were hidden by local Italian families and the Modena Escape Route, commenced which eventually helped some 250 escaping POWs. 134 min Stalag I-B Hohenstein East Prussia Location N/E 53-20. The camp was supposed to be closed completely late in 1944 when most of the camp were transferred to Sagan (Stalag Luft III) but a few of the sick remained to be liberated by the Soviet a few months later. There are also unconfirmed listings of another OFLAG 83 LXXXIII at Winniza in the Ukraine. But then the train stopped in Stettin for unloading, they switched to another car loaded with sacks of barley destined for Aachen in western Germany, which they reached four days later. We still hold two meetings a year at the Union Jack Club London. Located at Schirwindt (Sirvintos) in Lithuania. Jack Lee, The camp was partially located on the grounds of the Tannenberg Memorial and initially included a set of wooden structures intended to house World War I veterans during Nazi festivities. In the spring of 1942 only 500 Soviet POWs remained alive in the camp, all were then executed. Helmut Griem, Oflag X-B was opened in May 1940, and was used to hold French officers captured during the battle of France. Others were sent to work on farms. Discover Colditz Castle in Colditz, Germany: An officers prison camp believed to be impregnable by the Germans saw over 30 successful escapes. Thinking back, she recalls the Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of war. Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive were placed in Stalag II-A. Nominal rolls for some Japanese camps are among papers prepared for a history of the RAF services in AIR 49/383-388, but they are generally disappointing. This was a work camp, making roads and operating a stone quarry. A second tunnel, about 40 m (130 ft) long, was built from April to August 1944. | Located at 53 degrees, 41 minutes North, 16 degrees, 55 minutes East in the far North of Germany on the Baltic coast. 117 min Neave went on to work as an intelligence agent for MI9 and served with the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. On 22 June 1943, all reserve officers of the Belgian Army held at Oflag II-A in Prenzlau were moved to Oflag X-D Fischbek. Upon capture, he was transferred to Colditz. Walk towards gate disguised as German officer, Escaped through window of solitary confinement, Escaped from Zeitz Hospital, recaptured then escaped en route to Dsseldorf prison, Under theatre out of guardhouse as German officers, Escaped from military hospital in Gnaschwitz, Broke into German quarters to steal uniform, Replaced French orderly on working party. As of 2012 the site of the camp is occupied by the barracks and training school of. However that afternoon a detachment of over a hundred SS-Feldgendarmerie (SS Military police) entered the camp, mustered over 3,000 men and marched them out, heading east. Up to 22,000 prisoners who had died or been murdered, were buried in 32 mass graves within the local area of the camp. Even though the camp housed civilians, it continued to be operated by the German Army. 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