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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag VIII C (map 4e) on October 4, 1939, in Sagan (today Żagań, Poland), in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VIII, from Dulag A. The camp had two subcamps (Zweiglager), one in Neuhammer (today Swiętoszów, Poland), which until the end of June 1942 was an independent camp (Stalag VIII E), and one in Krünzburg, which during the autumn of 1944 was converted into an Ilag.¹ Between February 8 and February 12, 1945, with the approach of the Red Army, Stalag VIII C was evacuated to Stalag IX A in Ziegenhain and Stalag III A in Luckenwalde. The Red Army liberated the camp on April 16, 1945. The camp carried field post number [End Page 448] (Feldpostnummer) 11 936, which was both issued and struck between February 1 and July 11, 1941.

Stalag VIII C was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VIII). The first commandant of the camp was Oberst Paterman.

The main camp occupied a large area surrounded by a pine forest outside of Sagan. Stalag Luft 3 was adjacent to the main camp and occasionally prisoners there were treated in the Stalag VIII C hospital.² Within the main camp, nationalities were strictly divided into separate compounds and as much as possible the Germans sought to prevent communication between groups.³

In 1939 and 1940, the camp held Polish prisoners of war (POWs), who built the camp facilities. At the end of 1940, there were 4,800 Poles in the camp. As in many other camps during this time, the conditions at Stalag VIII C were very difficult for the Polish POWs. They spent most of the winter of 1939–1940 in tents. Their food rations were also poor: approximately 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of bread along with thin, watery soup from frozen potatoes and a cup of ersatz tea comprised the prisoners’ entire daily nourishment, leading to widespread malnutrition. Furthermore, hygienic conditions in the camp were poor, allowing infectious diseases to spread. In 1940, some of the Polish prisoners were transferred to another camp while the rest were stripped of their POW status and sent to Germany as forced laborers.⁴ French and Belgian prisoners arrived in 1940 and Serbians in 1941. In 1942, Soviet prisoners arrived, followed by British prisoners and Italian military internees in 1943. The first British troops arrived following the Allied armistice with Italy in September 1943. They arrived in a single group of 2,809 on September 20 following a route that took them from their initial camp in Italy and through Stalag VII A before reaching Stalag VIII C.⁵ Additional British prisoners arrived after the Allied landings in Western Europe in 1944. In November 1944, about 100 Poles, captured during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, and about 900 Slovaks, captured during the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising, arrived in the camp. The camp reached a maximum population of 48,308 prisoners in January 1945.⁶

As was the case in many Stalags, the Western Allied prisoners lived and spent their days primarily in work camps outside the main compound. Of the 2,809 British POWs in the camp in late October 1943, only 456 lived in the main camp. The remaining 2,353 were divided into 18 work details (Arbeitskommandos) in the surrounding area. The majority of the men worked in sugar factories, with smaller numbers engaged in agriculture and coal mining. Those in the main camp were chiefly noncommissioned officers who occupied three large one-story brick barracks. Overall, rations and conditions in the camp were satisfactory, at least for Western Allied prisoners.⁷

However, Block B, the disciplinary block at the camp in which prisoners of many nationalities were placed together late in the war, was an exception. On August 30, 1944, a large number of Belgian prisoners arrived at Stalag VIII C via Stalag 304 in Leuven and Stalag IX A in Ziegenhain. They were sent to Block B, where they joined prisoners from France and Britain as well as Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, and Hungarians.⁸ Block B consisted of five barracks near the western edge of the camp, enclosed by barbed wire. In the fall of 1944, two of these barracks were for Western prisoners (mainly French and Belgian) who had refused to work or violated the rules while at work, one was a transit barrack for those being transferred through the camp or being released from the camp, and two were for British prisoners. Each of these sections was separated from the others by an additional row of barbed wire.⁹

Click for larger view
View full resolution

Stalag VIII C at Sagan. Dr. Marti of the ICRC visits French POWs, date unknown.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

The prisoners in Block B were denied rights usually granted to other Western Allied POWs. They were not allowed to approach the gate of the main camp, nor were they allowed to enter the main camp to visit the canteen, library, or theater. They were also sometimes denied access to the Red Cross food packages that supplemented the prisoners’ rations.¹⁰

The worst treatment, however, was reserved for Soviet POWs. According to the Belgian authorities, they were subject to “a very severe regime from the point of view of food and poor treatment.”¹¹ In addition to receiving less and poorer quality food than other prisoners, the Soviet POWs were given harder labor to do in the work detachments as well as within the camp. The vast majority of the approximately 10,000 prisoners who died in Stalag VIII C were from the Soviet Union.¹²

The hospital facilities of Stalag VIII C were very good compared to those in other camps. They consisted of six large well-built barracks. One was designated as a tuberculosis ward, two as general medical wards, two as surgical facilities, and one as the operating room. Facilities were considered more than adequate for at least 350 patients. A prison doctor ran the hospital with complete freedom.¹³ Conditions in the hospital deteriorated quickly following the Allied landings in Western Europe in 1944. In late May, international observers regarded the hospital as excellent, with very good facilities, [End Page 449] care, and medical supplies.¹⁴ By November, the same observers described the facility as poorly heated due to broken windows. Patients lacked straw for beds and utensils for food. The medical supplies considered adequate only a few months prior had now been depleted.¹⁵

The evacuation of the camp took place in three separate columns, which were sent to Stalag III A in Luckenwalde and Stalag IX A in Ziegenhain via Stalag IX C in Bad Sulza. The first of these columns, which included the prisoners from Block B, left on February 8, 1945; the second and third columns left on February 11 and February 12, respectively. Those who were too sick to march were left in Sagan, where they were liberated by the Red Army.¹⁶ The men who were sent toward Ziegenhain arrived there on March 7, after nearly a month of marching. Those who were sent out in the columns (about 23,000 men in total) were liberated by the American forces that liberated Ziegenhain in late March 1945 (or by the Western Allies soon afterward), or by the Red Army as their forces overran the evacuation routes of the later columns.¹⁷