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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 353 on April 30, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) III.¹ From August to December [End Page 356] 1941, the camp was located about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) west of Grodno (today in Belarus) (map 4c), in an area the Germans annexed. In January 1942, the camp was deployed to Orsha (9b), in Soviet Belorussia, where it took over the former site of Dulag 127; the former site of Stalag 353 near Grodno was then occupied by Stalag 324. The camp was subordinate to the 286th Security Division (Sicherungsdivision) and the Prisoner of War District Commandant K (Kriegsgefangenen-Bezirkskommandant K). The camp commandant was Oberstleutnant Wild. The camp was guarded by the 1st Company of the 531st Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon). Stalag 353 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 15 392 between February 1 and July 11, 1941. The number was struck on October 22, 1944.

Stalag 353 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). The conditions in the camp were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs. Severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and inadequate medical care led to widespread death from starvation and disease. Deliberate mistreatment by the guards further exacerbated these conditions, and the death rate in the camp was extremely high, particularly in the winter of 1941–1942. In January 1942, 100–120 prisoners were dying in the camp each day.² The postwar investigation by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) calculated a death toll of 14,000 at the camp in Orsha; however, casualty figures reported by the ChGK are often significantly overstated, and this number should be viewed accordingly.³ As in other camps, newly arrived prisoners were screened to separate out “undesirables,” such as Jews and political commissars, that a detachment of the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) or the guards then shot near the camp.⁴ The date of the camp’s dissolution is unknown; it was still in service as of September 10, 1943.