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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 350 on April 15, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) X.¹ From August 1941 until the Germans disbanded it on April 21, 1944, Stalag 350 was located in Riga (map 9b). Stalag 350 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 11 135 between February 1 and July 11, 1941; the number was struck on August 26, 1943, reissued on January 21, 1944, and then permanently struck on November 9, 1944. Stalag 350 had subcamps (Zweiglager) in Salaspils and Mitau (Jelgava). A number of labor detachments (Arbeitskommandos) from the main camp were deployed in various locations in Riga.²

Beginning on July 25, 1941, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War with the Armed Forces Commander Ostland and Prisoner of War District H (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ostland and Kriegsgefangenen-Bezirk H). Beginning on November 20, 1943, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Operational Area IV (Operationsgebiet IV).

The camp commandants were Major Sulzberger and Oberst Wuelfert. The camp adjutant was Hauptmann Osswald and the counterintelligence (Abwehr) officer was Hauptmann Walter Wagner. The camp officers (Lageroffizier) were Hauptmann Zierold, Oberleutnant Reuter, Oberleutnant Hendrichs, and Oberleutnant Rick. The commandant of the subcamp at Mitau was, from January 1943, Hauptmann der Reserve Ehrnsperger. The camp was guarded (as of January 15, 1943) by the 529th Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon). The battalion commander was Major Schorn, his deputy was Hauptmann Schneider, the commander of the 1st Company was Oberleutnant Dornberger, and the commander of the 2nd Company was Hauptmann Bux.³ Latvian police also helped guard the camp.

Stalag 350 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Between February 1942 and September 1943, the camp held between 20,000 and 30,000 prisoners.⁴ Stalag 350 was located on Pernavas Street, at the intersection with the street known to the Germans as the Rudolfstrasse, in the former barracks of the 5th Sessiskii Regiment. The conditions created here were intolerable. In the late summer of 1941, the prisoners lived in two barracks: the former officers’ club and a stable. There was not enough space in these makeshift barracks for all of the prisoners, and many had to sleep under the open sky. Seeking refuge from the cold and rain, the prisoners used whatever objects came to hand to dig shallow pits, where they lived until winter. When the cold weather set in, the Germans hastily constructed 10 additional barracks, but they lacked windows and heat, and the roofs were full of holes. Inside the barracks, there were long rows of plank beds in three and five tiers, which nonetheless were insufficient in number.

The prisoners were made to work 12–14 hours a day, and the daily rations consisted of 150–200 grams (5.3–7 ounces) of bread and a thick soup made of food scraps. According to survivor testimony, the Germans shot prisoners who were not able to work or were ill. The Germans also beat and tortured prisoners for no reason. In February 1942, instances of cannibalism were recorded on several occasions, as numerous witnesses confirmed.⁵ For example, former POW P. F. Iakovenko testified that “they gave us 180 grams (6.3 ounces) of bread, half of which was sawdust and straw, and one liter (one quart) of soup without any salt, made from unpeeled, rotten potatoes. We slept right on the ground, and were plagued with lice. From December 1941 to May 1942, 30,000 POWs died in the camp of starvation, cold, beatings, or typhus, or were shot.”⁶

The largest work detachments (Arbeitskommandos) was located at 62 Slokas Street, in the former barracks of a motorized regiment of the Latvian Army. The conditions were as dreadful there as in the other subcamps. The prisoners had to work primarily at the nearby Spilve Airport, where they repaired the ruined airfield. Some dead prisoners were buried on the grounds of the airport; after the war, the area covered by the mass graves was calculated as 1,486 square meters (almost 16,000 square feet). The Germans buried others in a cemetery near the camp, across the road facing Kukushkin Hill, and in the area of the barracks.⁷ According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), between September 1941 and April 1942, 19,000 persons starved to death in this work detachment; however, casualty figures from the ChGK are often substantially exaggerated and should be viewed accordingly.

The “hospital” for the prisoners was at 1 Gimnasticheskaia Street, in a five-story brick building (a former almshouse) surrounded by two rows of barbed wire. A branch of the hospital was located on the Jelgava highway, in six two-story buildings (a former psychiatric hospital). As many as 17,000 prisoners were “treated” at this hospital between July 1941 and September 1943; the majority of them died of malnutrition or because the medical care they received was inadequate. There was no bedding and most of the prisoners did not have proper clothing. Lice were rampant in the hospital, as there were no disinfection facilities until 1942. Emma Mikelevna Fausts, a junior nurse at the hospital, testified that “wards were overfilled with sick and injured men, and often beds were placed in the corridors … many of the buildings had broken windows, and therefore in some buildings there was constantly a draft, and it was cold.” The death rate in the hospital was sometimes as high as 60–70 men per day according to the ChGK (however, the standard cautions about ChGK figures apply).⁸ [End Page 352]

As many as 2,000 prisoners worked in the work detachment at 130 Kr. Barona Street. The conditions there were also inhumane, and it was often a destination for sick or weakened prisoners whom the Germans wished to allow to die.⁹ The work detachment at 139 Bruṇinieku Street held Soviet officers, with an average population of about 500 men and similarly poor conditions and high mortality rates.¹⁰ The conditions in the branch of the subcamp at Salaspils were no better. The Germans neither registered nor counted the prisoners. The “camp” consisted of three open areas, fenced in but with no permanent structures. Prisoners who were unfit to work received no food and were thus starved to death. The prisoners had already been without food for a week or more during their transport from the main camp; often, half of the men were already dead by the time they arrived at Salaspils. Those who jumped out of the trains and attempted to get water upon arrival were shot. On September 25, 1944, all of the sick prisoners at Salaspils were taken to the woods and shot.¹¹ After nine months, of several tens of thousands of inmates, only 3,434 were still alive.¹²

The ChGK, which investigated the Germans’ crimes in Stalag 350 after the liberation of Riga in October 1944, established that more than 130,000 POWs perished in this camp complex.¹³ As in other camps, prisoners were screened to separate out “undesirables,” such as Jews and Communist Party members, who were shot by the guards or a Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) detachment.¹⁴