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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 308 (VIII E) (maps 4a and 4e) on April 8, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VIII and deployed it to Neuhammer-West (today Świętoszów, Poland). At that point its designation was Stalag 308 (VIII E). In July 1942, it was deployed to Sumy under the designation Stalag 308. The Wehrmacht ordered the camp’s dissolution on November 19, 1943, but reestablished it on December 15, 1944. At that time, it was located in Bathorn, Germany, in Defense District VI, but the camp still operated as Stalag 308. Records indicate two field post numbers (Feldpostnummern) assigned to this camp: 09 383 and 28 393.

While deployed in Neuhammer, the camp was subordinated to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VIII). While in Sumy, the camp was under the authority of the commander of the Army Group B Rear Area (Befehlshaber des rückwärtigen Heeresgebietes B, Berück B). During the deployment in Bathorn, the camp was subordinated to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VI.

Stalag 308 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). The first prisoners arrived in July 1941; by July 15, the camp held around 2,000 prisoners, and, by August 10, 1941, that number had risen to 30,000.¹ By the end of September 1941, more than 40,000 prisoners were registered in the camp. By the end of October 1941, when the last group of prisoners arrived in the camp, there were more than 57,000 (the last-known prisoner registration number is 57,057). Between September and November 1941, however, the Germans moved some of the prisoners to other camps.²

The recollections of former POWs provide an insight into the conditions in the camp. Andrei Pogozhev remembers:

In the middle of a dense, centuries-old forest was a flat area of sandy earth surrounded by a wire mesh fence. The trees were almost right up against the fenced rectangle. In front of the double gates—the only entry—which were made from intricately twisted barbed wire, on both sides from the inside, forming a passageway, were arranged three cages in a row; they measured 2 x 2 meters [6.6 x 6.6 feet], and all were made from the same wire. These were punishment cells. Every one of them was filled. None were empty. Somehow some of the guilty had the strength to stand, staggering, shifting from foot to foot. Most were lying down, curled up, their sharp shoulder blades protruding [. . .]. Thousands of Soviet prisoners of war wandered aimlessly, alone and in groups, along this strip of land…. The second half of September 1941. In good weather, the days are warm, but the nights are terrible. There is no escape from the piercing, chilling cold. The only building inside this strip of land is the concrete latrine, which harbors several dozen prisoners from the cold, prisoners who sleep standing up, warming each other. In these incredibly crowded conditions, it is impossible to fall down, but death is certain for those who do. People seize their night-time place in the latrine during the day. The cold forced people to bury themselves in earth. The sandy soil can be easily worked. Small groups of 2 or 3 people who are willing dig holes as best they can, and sit pressed together in them. Those who have a coat or raincoat cover themselves on top. On a daily basis in the camp, there thus appeared bumpy, uneven areas with hundreds of pits, which often turned into graves for those who didn’t manage to get out of them during the spontaneous swooping of the crazed crowd. Almost every day for entertainment, the camp officials had the guards throw a rutabaga over the fence into the crowd. It was thrown at different places and at different times. Having lost their minds from hunger and cold, thousands of people attacked the rutabaga. They rushed about the camp from one place to another. Dozens of bodies and hundreds of injured remained at the sites of such hard-to-imagine scuffles. Those who were not able to get out of their hole-shelters were trampled, and the hilly land turned into a flat field with arms, legs, and torsos sticking up. In spite of the constant danger of being buried alive, the cold forced people [End Page 293] to dig new shelters, which in a day or two would turn into graves again.³

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Stalag 308 (VIII E) at Neuhammer-West. Soviet POWs begging for food behind a barbed wire fence, date/source unknown.

Such inhumane conditions led to high mortality from starvation and illness. The total number of prisoners who perished in the camp is said to be more than 20,000.⁴ As a consequence of the high mortality rate and the transfers of prisoners to other camps, the number of prisoners in the camp dropped continuously. As of December 1, 1941, the camp held 14,916 Soviet prisoners; on January 1, 1942, 12,248; on February 1, 1942, 11,089 (as well as four British prisoners); on April 4, 1942, 7,999; on May 1, 1942, 8,264; and on June 1, 1942, 7,676.⁵

As in other camps, a Gestapo team from Breslau (today Wrocław) regularly sought out Communists and Jews from among the prisoners in Stalag 308. Those who were found were then sent away for execution. The Gestapo team arrived at the camp on August 5, 1941, at the latest. By the end of August, they had selected about 600 prisoners. This group went to the Auschwitz concentration camp for execution at the beginning of September, as the nearest concentration camp, Gross-Rosen, was not yet ready to carry out the liquidation of selected prisoners. Later, selected prisoners were sent to Gross-Rosen to be killed. From September to November 1941, around 1,400 POWs were killed in Gross-Rosen. Owing to a typhus epidemic, the Gestapo team did not carry out prisoner selections during the winter of 1941–1942. They resumed selections in the spring of 1942. In 1941 and 1942, a total of at least 1,800 prisoners from Stalag 308 were killed in Gross-Rosen.⁶

In June 1942, the camp in Neuhammer was transformed into a subcamp (Zweiglager) of Stalag VIII C in Sagan. The staff of Stalag 308 was redeployed to Sumy, where it took over Dulag 190. In August 1942, the staff of Stalag 308 had 16 officers, 11 officials, 60 noncommissioned officers, and 112 privates, a total of 199 people. The guard company had 3 officers and 300 of other ranks, 75 Germans and 228 Ukrainians.⁷ In Sumy, the camp was located in Secondary School No. 5 and in the former dormitory of a sugar refinery. More than 2,000 people died from starvation, cold, illness, and shooting in the camp during its existence. In addition, during the evacuation of the camp from Sumy to Darnitsa, guards shot all those who were too weak or unable to go on, such that 1,500 people were killed along the road.⁸ The senior medical officer under the commander of the Army Group B rear area (Leitender Sanitätsoffizier beim Befehlshaber des heeresgebiet), who visited the camp on October 15–16, 1942, described the situation in the camp as follows:

October 15, [19]42, 1600 hours, arrival in Sumy.

Visited Stalag 308 in Sumy again. Reception camp still undergoing expansion. Crumbling buildings…. About 45 POWs needing to convalesce. But in the work parties, too, are a good many POWs who are not completely fit for work duties. It is suggested to the camp doctor that he determine which POWs are completely able to work, in order to get a clear picture of what manpower can be planned on in winter. If those who are capable of working only to a limited extent are asked to do heavy labor, they will lose the remainder of their ability to perform. Restoration of that ability will then be possible only with great difficulty. The POWs may be deployed for labor only with due regard for the camp doctor’s assessment of their fitness for work….

October 16, [19]42 …

The commandant and the camp doctor are told that the camp doctor must monitor the POWs’ fitness for work (completely fit for use, fit for work to a limited extent, not fit for work), and that he is responsible for hygiene in the camp—nutrition, accommodations, latrines of a new kind—and for preventive measures for control of epidemic diseases…. A POW work squad receives precisely one fairly watery, almost cold soup at midday from the Stalag kitchen. A latrine, dreadful.⁹

The prisoners at the camp were captured from various locations in the Soviet Union, including Millerovo (Millerovskii raion, Rostovskaia oblast’), Ostrogozhsk, Kursk, and Stalingrad. Upon their arrival at the camp, they were searched for “literature and arms”; in fact, they were stripped of their boots, coats, hats, and warm clothing and robbed of any valuables in their possession.¹⁰ Many of the inmates were not POWs (perhaps as many as 10–15%) as the camp population also included boys as young as 15, women and girls, and men up to 65 years old. Most of the prisoners did not have beds and instead slept on the floor, sometimes with straw for bedding. Virtually all of the men had lice and as many as half were infected with typhus or dysentery.¹¹

The prisoners were fed 200–300 grams (7–10.6 ounces) of rye bread every day, along with a broth made with table scraps and spoiled food. They would stand outside, barefoot, as early as 4:00 a.m. in order to receive their meager bread ration. Those who were too weak to get up and get their rations were taken out by the guards, tossed into ditches on the banks of the Psël River, and left to die. The guards [End Page 294] maintained order in the bread lines by beating the prisoners with truncheons and rifle butts. Local civilians were forbidden to give food to the prisoners; if they tried, both they and the prisoner were severely beaten in view of the other prisoners.¹²

Prisoners were frequently beaten for no reason whatsoever. One particularly vicious guard, Stabsfeldwebel Franz Hansel, beat a sick prisoner named Ivan Bondriagin to death; he was promoted to the rank of Stabsfeldwebel for his actions during the forced march of prisoners from Sumy to Darnitsa, when he shot numerous stragglers.¹³ Many of those who became sick at Sumy were taken to Luchansk Cemetery and left there to freeze to death. The bodies of more than 2,000 prisoners from Stalag 308 were discovered in Luchansk Cemetery.¹⁴

All prisoners who were ambulatory were taken to work in Sumy. Some prisoners took their time outside the camp as an opportunity to attempt to escape. Many were successful, including 150 in December 1942 alone.¹⁵ However, those that were caught were interrogated by an officer named Kinast and beaten severely by Feldwebel Herman Kurt. They were then sent to solitary confinement for 15 days, only infrequently receiving rations of bread and water; few survived this treatment.¹⁶

Because Soviet troops were nearing the town of Sumy on February 13, 1943, 3,800 prisoners were sent on foot to Darnitsa near Kiev,¹⁷ while prisoners who could not be transported remained in the town. On the road to Darnitsa on February 14, 1943, partisans came across the marching column of prisoners and freed 700 of them. Two Germans were killed, two were wounded, and two went missing. Ten Ukrainian Hiwis were killed as well.¹⁸

There are indirect indications that the camp (or a subcamp or work team) was located in Kursk in the fall of 1942. In the spring of 1943, the camp was in Gorodishche (today Horodyshche, Cherkas’ka oblast’, Ukraine).¹⁹

There is no information regarding the deployment in Bathorn. The camp was liberated by Allied forces sometime between April 3 and April 6, 1945.