The German Stalag 344 Lamsdorf, which were liberated 78 years ago by Red Army soldiers. Stalag 344 Lamsdorf was one of the largest camps of its kind operating during the Second World War organised by the German authorities. Among the prisoners of the Stalag were the soldiers of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. 

Stalag 344 Lamsdorf was built on the site where a prisoner-of-war camp had already been constructed during the Franco-Prussian War. There the German authorities held captured soldiers of enemy armies during the First World War. 

The camp was functioning from the first days of September 1939. Among more than 300,000 prisoners of war during the 2 World War, about 200,000 were Red Army soldiers, 72,500 Polish Army soldiers and 6,000 Warsaw Insurgents. 

There were also soldiers from the UK, Yugoslavia, the French, Belgians, Italians, Slovaks, Romanians and US Air Force soldiers.

At the end of January 1945, as the Soviet front began to close to the camp, most of its prisoners were forced to march west into Germany. Soviet soldiers who entered the camp on 17 March found several thousand prisoners unable to march and a handful of guards. 

It is estimated that during the five years of Stalag 344’s operation, some 70,000 people died there, of whom around 40,000 were buried in mass, nameless graves in the area where today’s ceremonies were held.

The local and central authorities participated in the ceremonies at the old campsite.

Source: PAP

Photo:@TVP3Opole

Tomasz Modrzejewski