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

The Wehrmacht created Oflag 56 (map 4c) on April 20, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VI, but was subsequently transferred to Defense District I.¹ The unit was then deployed to Prostken (today Prostki, Poland).² The Wehrmacht gave the order to disband the camp on June 5, 1942. It received the field post number (Feldpostnummer) 19 312 between February 16 and July 18, 1941, and the number was struck between February 15 and July 30, 1942. The camp was under the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District I (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis I).

Although it was officially designated as an officers’ camp, the camp actually held only enlisted men. Conditions in the camp were the same as in other camps for Soviet prisoners: severely overcrowded, with inadequate food and sanitation and a lack of proper medical care. This environment led to an extremely high mortality rate, which was exacerbated by deliberate abuse from the German guards. As a result, the prisoner population dwindled quickly from several thousand to a few hundred. On April 1, 1942, there were 278 prisoners in the camp; by June 1, only 198.³ [End Page 215]

As in other camps, the Germans screened newly arrived prisoners to separate out so-called undesirables (Jews and political commissars), who were then shot in the woods near the camp. The Białystok Gestapo carried out the prisoner selections, while the Schutzpolizei handled the executions. Squads from 1st Company of the 13th Reserve Police Battalion shot 111 selected prisoners on September 4, 1941, and another 141 on October 3.⁴