STALAG VIII C

POSITION AND CONDITIONS.

        Stalag VIII C was located near some pine woods close to the village of KUNAU (Lat N 51 33' Long E 15 12'). This was the base camp which administered the working camps which were scattered round the area of KUNAU. Some of the working camps were quite a distance from the base camp, several being located in BRESLAU which was about 90 miles to the South East of KUNAU. A railway running North and South, linking SORAU and GORLITZ lay about a mile to the west of the camp. Stalag Luft III, situated about 5 miles due south of SAGAN was roughly 5 miles to the N.E. of Stalag VIII C.

        British P/W's moved into Stalag VIII C on 20th October 1943, the majority coming from Camp 82, LATERINA in Italy which was cleared of P/W's by the Germans on the signing of the Italian Armistice.

        The first batch of P/W's numbered 2,809, and consisted of English, South African, New Zealand, Canadian and Australian though the majority were English.

        The following list shows the increase of British P/W in the camp from May 1944 to December 44:-

        In January 1945 the camp was vacated and moved west to Stalag XI B, IX A and IX B and VIII C was in danger of being overrun by the Russian advance.

        British P/W's were accommodated in two large brick barracks at KUNAU, 90 men being allocated to each room. They slept on wooded beds which were arranged in three tier and were provided with two German blankets each. Previous to September 1943 the camp had been filled with Belgian, Russian and Serbian prisoners and when British P/W's arrived they found VIII C ridden with fleas and lice. This was soon put right by the use of disinfectants etc., and the general conditions in the camp improved and became fairly satisfactory.

        After the transfer from LATERINA, mail was rather slow in catching up; for instance, 13,000 letters for P/W's were still waiting to be censored in April 1944.

        P/W's were allowed to play football four times a week and the amount of sports equipment received was considered quite adequate. Indoor recreations and games were excellently organised.

        Red Cross parcels arrived regularly in camp; some were stolen during transit from the main camp to the working camps but in several cases where this occurred the German railways paid compensation.

        The working camps controlled by VIII C numbered 18 in October '43 but by the time the camp was evacuated in January '45 this number had grown to 25. P/W's were employed in various ways, at BRESLAU they were engaged in concrete factories, Locomotive factories, Gasworks, Cement factories, Work on Aerodrome, the Post Office and on Tramways.

        At other towns and villages which included KLETTENDORF, SUDEG, ZUCKMANTEL, AIT ROSENBERG, GURSCHDORF SUDG, OELS, MERZDORF, BRIEG, STROEBEL, MALTSCH, OPPERHU and HAMMERFELD, they were put to work in sugar factories, stone quarries, machine factories, paper factories, steel works, brick factories, clay pits, the building of shelters, food factories and forestry work.

        Stalag VIII C compared very favourably with other Stalags and the morale of P/W's was high throughout.

ESCAPE ORGANISATION.

        Camp Leaders at Stalag VIII C were as follows:-

                20 Sept. 43 to 13 May 44 - R.S.M. Cockroft (U.D.F.)

                13 May. 44 to 15 Oct 44 - C.S.M. J. Evers (Grenadier Gds.)

                15 Oct. 44 to 3 Feb 45 - W.O.II G.A. Baxter (A.I.F.)

        No Escape Committee consisting of any British soldiers existed in Stalag VIII C. Some French soldiers in the Camp, about whom there is very little mentioned, appear to have organised escapes in a rather haphazard way.

        No escapers ever reached England. On several occasions a man wishing to escape was introduced by the camp leader to a French Sergeant Major; this contact being effected in the French dentists consulting room. The escaper would then go to a football match with a crowd of men amongst whom he changes his clothes with a French soldier, thereafter leaving the camp in French uniform. This appears to have been the accepted manner of attempting to escape, in point of fact no successful escapes were ever made, thought it is possible that men did get out of the camp for a short while.

        Sgt. Macdonald (U.D.F.) who was in charge of the Red Cross parcels in the camp provided a certain amount of food for escapers.

        R.S.M. Cockroft states definitely that "there were no Escape Committees in Stalag VIII C."

ESCAPE MATERIALS.

        Although a certain amount of escape material was sent to VIII C, the receipt of special parcels containing escape material was never acknowledged. The camp leaders have stated on their Pink Forms that NO special parcels even arrived in the camp.

W/T COMMUNICATIONS.

        L/Cpl Lehman (U.D.F.) brought parts of a wireless set with him to VIII C from an Italian prison camp. The set was not complete, further parts were acquired by working parties and brought into the camp by subterfuge, concealed in Red Cross tins filled with Jam etc.

        The set was brought into the camp in September 43 but was not in working order until 1st June 44 when the first B.B.C. news was heard.

        The Germans suspected the presence of the wireless set and carried out weekly searches but never succeeded in finding it, as it was cleverly concealed in a biscuit tin which measured ten inches in height by three inches in width by 2 inches in depth. The tin was left lying on top of a pile of junk made up of other tins etc., and on one occasion while a search was being carried out, the tin containing the set was given to a German sentry to hold whilst the pile of rubbish was investigated.

        The set was made by L/Cpl Lehman who was helped by S/Sgt Sutcliffe, Cpl. Somerville, Cpl Domaine and Sgt Adams.

        Although three sets were built before the camp was disbanded, two sets being kept in reserve whilst the third one was used.

        Private G.J. Burger (U.D.F.) took the news in Dutch and German; L/Cpl Lehman and S/Sgt Adams took the news in English. A summary of the news was handed every morning to Sgt Figg (U.D.F.) who was responsible for editing and distributing it.

        On leaving VIII C, Cpl T.W. Brown carried one of the sets on the 400 mile march to Stalag IX B only to discover on reaching the new camp that it was not equipped with electricity.

        The fact that a reliable News bulletin was published daily kept the mens morale very high indeed, particularly as it countered all the German propaganda in the camp.

NEWS LETTERS.

        Not many News Letters seem to have been received, even in the early days of the war; those that were received appeared to meet with a certain amount of scepticism, and they did not appear to have done very much to raise the men's morale.

CODE LETTER MAIL.

        No method of communication existed between Stalag VIII C and the War Office. There being no code letters written in the camp, members of VIII C were unaware that a method existed whereby they could get in touch with the U.K. Sgt Macdonald states:- "We were aware that Officers in Stalag Luft III were in touch with the War Office, but never actually received confirmation of this."