Originally a
Hitler Youth camp, in October 1939 it was modified to house about 15,000
Polish prisoners from the German
September 1939 offensive. It was established on 26 August 1939, a few days before the German
invasion of Poland, which started
World War II. It was initially a transit camp or
Dulag located on an 18-hectare field alongside Ulica Lubańska, renamed as Stalag VIII–A on 23 September 1939. Polish POWs who were either deported west to Germany or sent to nearby
forced labour subcamps were held in the camp. It also served as a transit camp for Polish civilians, including women, as well as activists and
intelligentsia from
Silesia,
Greater Poland and
Pomerania, who were arrested during the
Intelligenzaktion to be deported to
Nazi concentration camps in Germany. Around 3,000 people were held in the camp, while 7,000 were sent to forced labour subcamps in the region. Most of the over 10,000 prisoners were Poles, others included
Czechs,
Lithuanians,
Belarusians and
Jews. By June 1940 most of the Poles had been transferred to other camps and replaced with
Belgian and
French troops taken prisoner during the
Battle of France. Due to the lack of infrastructure, the French and Belgians were held in tents in mid-1940. At one time there were over 30,000 jammed into facilities designed for 15,000. In 1941 a separate compound was created to house
Soviet prisoners. Over 1,500 Jews were deported from the camp to
Lublin in
German-occupied Poland in 1941, and last Poles were deported from the camp in 1942. In 1943, 2,500
British Commonwealth soldiers came from the battles in
Italy, among them residents from the British Isles,
Canada,
Australia,
New Zealand and
South Africa. Later in the same year more than 6,000
Italian soldiers came from
Albania. A total of 47,328, the highest number of prisoners in Stalag VIII A was registered in September 1944. Numerically, Frenchmen were in the majority, followed by the
Russians, Italians, Belgians,
Britons and the
Yugoslavs. French paramedics helped them temporarily, however, there was a high mortality rate among them. On 14 February 1945 the Americans and British were marched out of the camp westward in advance of the Soviet
offensive into Germany. The evacuation process was carried out gradually through to May 1945. The evacuation took place on foot, with all means of transport driving in front of the people for military purposes.
The Long March claimed further victims. Some of the prisoners were taken to
Bavaria, others to
Thuringia, where they were freed by the Allies. The last evacuation of the camp took place on 7 May 1945, when the Soviet army freed the prisoners. After the war, many graves of western soldiers were exhumed and sent back to their home countries. In 1948 the city council of Zgorzelec decided to have the barracks dismantled in order to use the materials to rebuild Warsaw and other Polish towns. In 1976 a memorial was erected on the site of the former commandant’s office by French and Polish veterans who had been POWs. On the sandstone plate next to the memorial it says:
Stalag VIIIA: A place sanctified by the blood and martyrdom of the prisoners of war of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War – 22.VII.1976 French veterans of the camp arranged for a marble slab to be attached to the memorial in 1994. On the slab it says in Polish and French:
"1939 Stalag VIIIA 1945: Through this camp walked, in it lived and suffered ten thousands of prisoners of war". ==Forced labour subcamps==