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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 383 (map 4d) on February 18, 1943, by converting Oflag III C Hohenfels into a Stalag. In 1944 and 1945, the camp had a subcamp (Zweiglager) in Steinburg (also known by the names Bogen and Parsberg). Although Hohenfels was located in Defense District (Wehrkreis) XIII, Stalag 383 was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VII).

The prisoners in the camp were noncommissioned officers from Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. In April 1943, the camp held more than 4,000 prisoners of war (POWs). In early 1944, there were approximately 5,000 prisoners in the camp, and in early April 1945, there were about 7,000.¹ Stalag 383 was a camp for troublesome prisoners who refused to work. Nonetheless, they enjoyed considerable freedom and comforts. The men lived in small dormitory huts (400 in total), each holding no more than 14 prisoners. The huts (“snug billets,” as one prisoner described them) had stove heating, for which coal and wood were used; the prisoners were allowed to gather the wood in a nearby forest. The prisoners regularly received food parcels from the International Red Cross and also could prepare food for themselves (food shortages did not become a problem until late 1944 and early 1945).

Opportunities for recreational activities in the camp were abundant thanks to the intervention of the Red Cross and YMCA. The prisoners had many musical instruments, and they organized 15 musical groups and orchestras as well as a chorus with 500 participants. The prisoners also created two theaters, in which various shows were regularly offered. The prisoners created dozens of groups and clubs reflecting different interests, arranged sports competitions, grew vegetables, raised rabbits, and even kept bees. The camp had athletic fields as well as places for relaxing and taking walks. There was also a swimming pool, which in winter was converted into an ice-skating rink; 100 pairs of skates were supplied by the Swedish Red Cross.

The camp had substantial opportunities for activities of an intellectual nature, including a library with 10,000 books and [End Page 381] a school with the capacity for 2,000 men, which the prisoners made out of the old horse stables, with separate classrooms and a reading room. Though it was officially prohibited, the prisoners had radio receivers, cameras, watches, and other such items. The prisoners had pocket money, which they could use at 22 exchange points to acquire practically whatever they liked—ranging all the way from little powder puffs to false teeth. If they were unable to acquire something by legitimate means, they obtained these items through the German guards in the black market, in exchange for cigarettes.²

There were some Jewish prisoners in the camp. Unlike at some other camps, they were not subjected to discrimination or special restrictions. Jewish prisoners who were athletes and participated in the camp’s sports competitions on a separate team even obtained the right to hoist the national blue and white flag with a six-pointed star. On April 25, 1944, when this camp, like others where Western prisoners were in captivity, held a regular sports festival for POWs of all nationalities, each team marched to the tune of its own national music. The Jewish athletes sang “The Company Song” in Hebrew.³

The camp was evacuated on April 28, 1945. Of the prisoners held in the camp at that time, around 5,500 were evacuated on foot, while more than 1,000 men who were not healthy enough to march were moved in vehicles and several hundred others hid, awaiting the arrival of the American forces.⁴