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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 368 on November 1, 1941, in Görlitz (map 4e), in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VIII, [End Page 372] from a Frontstalag. From March to November 1942, the camp deployed to a site in the Generalgouvernement near Beniaminów (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland) (5).¹ In 1942, the camp deployed first to the Army Group South Rear Area (Heeresgebiet Süd),² and then to the Army Group Center Rear Area (Heeresgebiet Mitte) from May 1943 onward (replacing Stalag 397).³ Specifically, in May 1943, the camp was deployed in the village of Saburovets (9c), just to the southwest of Orël.⁴ It had a subcamp (Zweiglager) in Mariupol’ during this time.

While deployed in Poland, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War with the Armed Forces Commander in the Generalgouvernement of Poland (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Wehrmachtbefehlshaber im Generalgouvernement Polen).⁵ In 1943, the camp was first subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Operations Area II (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Operationsgebiet II), and then to the Commander of the Ninth Army Rear Area (Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, Korück, 532) and the Prisoner of War District Commandant A (Kriegsgefangenen-Bezirkskommandant A).

The commandant of Stalag 368 was Major Oskar Wilke. His deputy was Major Herring and his adjutant was Oberleutnant Fritz Jakobsa. The first counterintelligence (Abwehr) officer was Hauptmann Arthur Schulz, who was succeeded by Oberleutnant Willi Schubert in December 1941. The camp was guarded by the 1st Company of the 268th Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon).⁶

Stalag 368 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). In 1941 and 1942, the number of prisoners in the camp vastly exceeded its capacity, which one former officer estimated as about 5,000. The camp covered an area of about 1 square kilometer (0.4 square miles) and there were only four wooden barracks; thus, many prisoners were forced to sleep in holes in the ground until additional barracks were constructed. As it held a high proportion of prisoners of non-Russian ethnicity (Georgians, Belarusians, Uzbeks, Mongols, etc.), Stalag 368 was also used as a camp for soldiers of the Eastern Legions (Ostlegionen), units made up of non-Russian Soviet prisoners who volunteered for service or were conscripted into the Wehrmacht. In August 1942, the camp held 11,305 prisoners,⁷ and on October 10, 1942, it held 10,000 men serving in the “Turkestan and North Caucasus Legions.”⁸

The conditions in the camp were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs. Severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and disease, exacerbated by a lack of medical care and deliberate abuse from the guards, were the rule. These conditions resulted in a high death rate, particularly in the winter of 1941–1942, when as many as 100–150 prisoners were dying in the camp every day (primarily due to a typhus epidemic), according to a former guard.⁹ Newly arrived prisoners were regularly screened to separate out “undesirables,” such as Communists and Jews, who then were shot by the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) or the camp guards.¹⁰ The Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) reported that 10,000 prisoners died at Beniaminów (including totals from both Stalag 368 and Stalag 333); however, as with all figures reported by the ChGK, this estimate should be viewed with caution as it may be substantially exaggerated.¹¹ The camp was dissolved on February 19, 1944.¹² The former commandant, Major Wilke, was never brought to justice for his crimes, as he died in 1947.