I. Prisoner-of-war camps
The traditions of Polish arms in the Bolesławiec region came back to life and left their mark on this land only during the Second World War. Before the soldier of the 2nd Polish Army, weapon in hand, set foot on this land, however, cruel fate cast Polish soldiers—participants in the September Campaign from various regiments, divisions and field armies—into prisoner-of-war camps located along the Bóbr and the Lusatian Neisse.
Several tens of thousands of rank-and-file soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the Polish Army were transported directly from the battlefields of September 1939 under guard to Zgorzelec and Żagań. After being unloaded at the railway stations, they marched in columns through the city to fields and pastures on its outskirts. Initially, they were housed under tents and ordered to build double barbed-wire fences and guard towers fitted with heavy machine guns; later, they had to build wooden barracks for themselves. Before they were moved into the barracks, however, the Polish soldiers shivered under the tents because the autumn was cold. They fell ill with pneumonia and died. In this way, the camps known in German as “Stalag VIII A” in Zgorzelec and “Stalag VIII C” in Żagań came into being. The German word Stalag is an abbreviation denoting a camp for non-commissioned officers and rank-and-file prisoners of war. The numerous “Stalags” scattered throughout the territory of the Third Reich bore Roman numerals derived from the numbers of military districts. The Lower Silesian military district was numbered VIII. Letters of the alphabet following the military district number denoted successive “Stalags” located within that military district.
In addition to the camps mentioned above, “Stalag VIII B” was established in Łambinowice and “Stalag VIII E” in Świętoszów, which at the end of 1941 became a subcamp of “Stalag VIII C” in Żagań.
Officers captured on the battlefields of September were placed in separate camps called “Oflags” (an abbreviation of the German name for an “officers’ prisoner-of-war camp”). There were no such camps in Lower Silesia.
In spring 1940, French, Yugoslav (royal army), British and Dutch prisoners of war captured on the battlefields in the West and the Balkans were brought to the prisoner-of-war camps in Zgorzelec, Świętoszów and Żagań. In summer 1941, the prisoner-of-war camps in Zgorzelec, Żagań and Świętoszów were almost empty. The Germans were preparing space for Soviet prisoners of war, millions of whom had been captured by the German forces. From then on, the main body of prisoners held in the Lower Silesian “Stalags” would consist of Soviet prisoners of war.
In summer 1944, soldiers captured during the Warsaw Uprising and the Slovak Uprising were brought to the camps in Zgorzelec and Żagań.
In May 1945, German soldiers taken prisoner were interned in the former “Stalags” of Zgorzelec and Żagań. Polish soldiers took up guard duty at the camps. The roles had therefore been reversed... We will return to this matter in another instalment.
What fate befell the prisoners from the camps in Zgorzelec, Świętoszów and Żagań who made way for Soviet prisoner-soldiers?
Well, the German state, contrary to international law:
a) forced some of the prisoners to submit declarations renouncing their rights as prisoners of war. From then on, the prisoners became ordinary workers employed in German industry or agriculture, like several million inhabitants of east-central Europe conquered by the forces of the Third Reich and compelled to work in the territory of the Third Reich;
b) from the remaining prisoners who did not sign the declarations, it created so-called AR “Arbeitskomanda”—military labour detachments consisting of between a dozen and several dozen prisoners. They were sent to forced labour throughout Lower Silesia. Several dozen prisoner labour detachments from “Stalag VIII A” in Zgorzelec were sent to the Bolesławiec district and city.
The prisoner labour detachments were housed in village community centres or industrial plant halls and surrounded by barbed-wire fences. The prisoners were employed in dispersed arms-industry facilities, agricultural estates, and gravel and ceramic-clay mines.
to be continued.