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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 334 on April 28, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) IV.¹ From the fall of 1941 until the end of 1943, a camp was located in the town of Belaia Tserkov’ (today Bila Tserkva, Ukraine) (map 9e). Stalag 334 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 39 531 between July 30, 1941, and February 28, 1942. The number was struck between September 8, 1942, and March 11, 1943.

Until October 20, 1941, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of the Rear Area of Army Group South (Befehlshaber des Heeresgebiets Süd). Beginning on October 20, 1941, the camp was under the command of the Commander of Prisoners of War of the Armed Forces Commander Ukraine (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber Ukraine).² As of March 1943, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War of the Commander of the Rear Area of Army Group South (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Befehlshaber Heeresgebiet Süd).

The commandant of the camp from the fall of 1941 to July 1943 was Oberstleutnant Johann Bremer and, from July to September 1943, Oberstleutnant Theodor Junker. The deputy commandant was Major Hans-Martin Luther. The camp adjutant was Hauptmann Johannes Beier; the counterintelligence (Abwehr) officer was Major Otto Mentzendorff and his deputy was Hauptmann Hans Straubel. The camp doctor was Dr. Hahndorff.³ As of the end of 1941, the camp was guarded by personnel from the 560th Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon).⁴ As of November 1942, the camp was guarded by Company 1 of the 778th Reserve Battalion.⁵

Stalag 334 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). The table shows the camp population on selected dates in 1942 and 1943.⁶

The conditions in the camp were the same as those in other camps for Soviet POWs. Extreme overcrowding in a small area, food that was inadequate in both quantity and quality, exhaustion, disease, and the absence of proper medical care or hygienic facilities all led to a huge mortality rate.⁷ The local authority, with the permission of the German headquarters, attempted to help the prisoners. Thus, on November 15, 1941, Maikovskii, the town mayor, announced to the inhabitants that on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, starting on November 16, 1941, foodstuffs would be received to aid the prisoners; the products that could be passed on to them included baked bread, sugar, fats, boiled potatoes, porridge, cucumbers, cabbage, and the like. But these measures, of course, could not substantially improve the food situation of the prisoners, and hunger and disease continued to kill them.

It is impossible to establish the overall number of POWs who perished in the camp. According to data of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), more than 20,000 prisoners died in Belaia Tserkov’ in the period 1941–1943.⁸ However, casualty figures from the ChGK are often significantly inflated and should, therefore, be viewed accordingly.

As in other camps, the Germans screened the prisoners to identify Jews and Communists, whom detachments of Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) personnel or guards then shot near the camp. In addition, from May 1942 to August 1943, by order of the camp leadership, approximately 300 prisoners were shot for attempted escape, rebellion, and theft.⁹

In 1969, the public prosecutor’s office in Giessen began an investigation into the case of former members of the camp’s [End Page 330] headquarters staff who were accused of having taken part in the selection of “undesirable” prisoners and in the shooting of prisoners. Because the suspects had died or could not be found, the investigation was dropped in 1974.¹⁰