The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Wehrmacht formed Dulag 240 on March 26, 1941, from Frontstalag 240. From March to July 1941, the camp deployed to Litzmannstadt (today: Łódź, Poland) (map 4c), and, in July 1941, it was in Jabłonna (5).¹ Beginning in the summer of 1941, the camp deployed to various locations in the occupied Soviet Union. From August to November 1941, the camp was in Smolensk (9c); from late November 1941 until January 1942, it was in Rzhev (9c), where it replaced AGSSt 7; and from January 1942 until mid-1944, it was in Borissow (Russian: Borisov; today Barysaw, Belarus) (9b). The Germans disbanded the camp in September 1944. Dulag 240 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 00 251 between January 27 and July 14, 1942.

Beginning on July 27, 1941, the camp was subordinate to the Ninth Army Rear Area Commander (Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, Korück, 582), part of Army Group Center (Heeresgruppe Mitte).² From 1942 to 1944, it was subordinate to the 286th Security Division (Sicherungsdivision). The camp commandant was Oberstleutnant Milentz.

Dulag 240 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). The conditions in the camp were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs. Meager food rations, overcrowding, and lack of proper medical care led to malnutrition and disease, which [End Page 115] produced a high mortality rate, particularly in the winter of 1941–1942.³ On November 23, 1941, the headquarters took over the camp in Rzhev, with 5,582 prisoners, from AGSSt 7. The death rate among the prisoners at this time was about 2 percent per day, and on November 27, 1941, it reached 125 men per day. On December 4, 1941, the camp commandant announced that it was now possible to give the prisoners food twice a day; the “really catastrophic food situation” improved, as did the prisoners’ capacity for work. As the air temperature dropped, however, the death rate increased once again. In total, from November 25, 1941 to December 14, 1941, 1,191 prisoners (around 22 percent of the camp population) died. During the very cold days from December 5–7, 1941, the death rate grew from 88 to 119 persons per day, though with the moderation of the freezing temperatures it dropped to 62 on December 8, and continued to decline. On December 9, 47 prisoners died, and on December 10 and 11, there were 30 deaths each day. When the air temperature dropped again, the death rate began to rise once more. On December 12, 35 prisoners died, and there were 38 deaths on December 13 and 53 on December 14.

The camp commandant sought to reduce the death rate by improving the prisoners’ food and accommodations. According to his report on December 14, 1941, sick prisoners who were able to recover were moved into a newly created, heated hospital barracks, while sick prisoners for whom there was no hope of recovery were left in their previous situation. According to the commandant’s report on December 9, 1941, each prisoner was receiving daily rations of 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of bread, 30 grams (1 ounce) of horseflesh, and 175 grams (6.2 ounces) of other food products (1,435 calories).⁴ Jewish-Soviet prisoner Lev Frankfurt, who was interned in Dulag 240 from December 1942 to May 1943, remembers that he weighed only 44 kilos (97 pounds) at a height of 185 centimeters (6 feet) when he was taken into the camp hospital (Lazarett) for the treatment of an infected wound. He was so emaciated that he was able to touch his thumb to his forefinger around his knee.

While the camp was deployed in Smolensk, a large transport of prisoners had to be turned away due to overcrowding and taken to the city; the incident which followed this decision is typical of the behavior of German guards toward Soviet prisoners during this time. The camp commandant’s report dated October 25, 1941, describing the events noted that “[o]n the night of October 19–20, 1941, 30,000 prisoners of war, who could not be admitted to the Smolensk North camp because there was no space, were redirected to the city. On the morning of October 20, 125 dead POWs were counted on the route from the railroad station to the north camp alone; most of them lay close to the march route, with shots to the head. In most cases, therefore, it cannot have been a matter either of attempted escape or of actual defi-ance.”⁵ As in other such camps, the Germans screened the prisoners to separate out Jews and political commissars, who were then shot by the guards or Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD).

While the camp was located in Borisov in the winter of 1943–1944, it held 1,000 Italian military prisoners. By order of the German Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) on September 15, 1943, Italian prisoners were to be sent to the east and used for labor. About 70 of the Italians were still alive by the spring of 1944. On January 19, 1944, 16 wagons of Italian internees were deported from the camp to the Zubry railroad station (Mogilev voblasts’).⁶

Based on prisoner identification cards, as of the end of June 1944, no fewer than 14,209 prisoners had passed through the camp system. From June 14–26, 1944, alone, the Germans brought at least 1,062 people to the camp, both POWs and civilians. The civilians, natives of the Minsk area, were mostly between the ages of 14 and 18. On July 19, 1944, a large group of prisoners was sent to Stalag III A in Luckenwalde.⁷