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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 318 (VIII F) (map 4e) on April 8, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VIII and deployed it in Lamsdorf (today Łambinowice, Poland). Stalag 318 was located 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) northwest of the main camp at Lamsdorf, Stalag VIII B.¹ The camp was under the authority of the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VIII). Stalag 318 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 09 911 between February 1 and July 11, 1941. The number was struck between July 12, 1941, and January 26, 1942; this date was well before the camp disbanded, probably because it had assumed permanent status at its location in Lamsdorf.

Stalag 318 was a camp for Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). The first prisoners arrived in late July 1941. In total, from the fall of 1941 to the end of May 1943, 120,989 prisoners passed through the camp, of whom 28,376 were transferred to other camps in Defense District VIII, 15,348 were transferred to camps outside of Defense District VIII, and 34,841 were sent to labor detachments (Arbeitskommandos) outside of the camp.² The camp population ranged from a minimum of 4,081 in January 1942 to a maximum of 15,877 in March 1943.³

The conditions in the camp were horrible and in violation of the norms of international law regarding POWs. When the prisoners arrived, most were already in a state of severe exhaustion from the long journey to the camp. For the first months of its existence, there were no barracks. The prisoners had to dig burrows in the ground with sticks or their bare hands for shelter. In 1942, barracks were built in the camp, but the prisoners were given only bare wooden planks to sleep on. Sanitary conditions were appalling; the men were allowed a hot shower only once a month and cold water was severely rationed, preventing them from washing their clothes. From November 1941 through the spring of 1942, a typhus epidemic ravaged Stalag 318 and the mortality rate reached a very high level. Between December 1, 1941, and January 31, 1942, 2,270 prisoners died in the camp, mostly due to typhus; during this time, the camp was quarantined and prisoners were not allowed to enter or exit.

In addition to typhus and other diseases, starvation was rampant in the camp. The prisoners received only a cup of ersatz coffee, 200 grams (7 ounces) of poor-quality bread (made from field beets, a small amount of rye flour, and sawdust) and half a liter (2 cups) of rutabaga or potato soup per day.⁴ These rations were not sufficient to sustain life, leading some prisoners to resort to desperate measures to survive. After a September 6, 1941, visit to the camp, the Oppeln (Opole) Gestapo reported that they had discovered evidence of cannibalism among the prisoners. The Gestapo officers had found pieces of fresh meat that were clearly from a human body in a foxhole in the camp. When confronted about the meat, three prisoners confessed that they had cooked and eaten parts of the body of their dead comrade out of desperation for something to eat.⁵

After the quarantine of the camp ended, the prisoners were sent to work in work details. Some 60,000 Soviet prisoners were in work details subordinate to Stalag 318 (VIII F) by November 1943.⁶ Many of these prisoners were sent to work in metallurgy or in the coal mines in Upper Silesia, where conditions were very harsh; they were usually required to work 12 hours a day or longer and hardly received any food.

In 1941 and 1942, the Gestapo squad from Oppeln conducted selections (Aussonderungen) of the prisoners in the camp to eliminate “undesirables,” such as Jews, political commissars, and other Communist Party members. They sent these prisoners to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp for execution.⁷

On June 24, 1943, Stalag 318 (VIII F) was absorbed by the main camp at Lamsdorf, Stalag VIII B, and became known as subcamp (Teillager) Stalag VIII B. On March 17, 1945, both the main camp and the subcamp were liberated by the Red Army; about 5,000 Soviet prisoners remained alive inside the camp. In July 1945, mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of Soviet prisoners were discovered near the [End Page 309] villages of Klucznik and Szadurczyce. It is estimated that at least 40,000 Soviet POWs died in Stalag 318 (VIII F) and its associated labor detachments.⁸