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- Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp during the Second World War -


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World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp




       Stalag 8A (VIII-A, according to the German designation system) was located in Goerlitz (now called Zgorzelec) a western Polish town that lies on the border with Germany, approximately 50 miles east of Dresden. It was established in October 1939 to house Polish POWs taken during the German invasion. It was initially used as a transit camp (a 'Dulag') for prisoners, who would be processed and then distributed to other camps for permanent confinement. During the next few years, the size and composition of the camp population increased greatly as POWs of many nationalities were sent there. The camp reached its largest population of more than 47,000 prisoners in late 1944. In February 1945, in the face of advancing Soviet forces, Stalag 8A was evacuated.

     

    22nd Jul 1941 Parcels


    If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.



    Those known to have been held in or employed at

    Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp

    during the Second World War 1939-1945.

    The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List

    Records from Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp other sources.



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    Want to know more about Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp?


    There are:556 items tagged Stalag 8A Prisoner of War Camp available in our Library

      These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War.


    James R Warrilow 3rd Hussars

    James R Warrilow served with the 3rd Hussars British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch.

    Update: Unfortunately The Wartime Memories Project has lost touch with Dan, his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.

    Dan



    RF James 3/4th Sqd. County Of London Yeomanry

    RF James served with the 3/4th Sqd. County Of London Yeomanry British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch.

    Update: Unfortunately The Wartime Memories Project has lost touch with Dan, his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.

    Dan



    Georges Pieltani

    My great grandfather, Georges Pieltani, from Pepinster, Belgium was held in Stalag 8A. My grandmother told me stories how he and some of the others would kill a pig and have a barbecue or ruin the laundry on purpose. It was sort of their little ways of fighting the Germans discretely. I know he saw some really horrible things during the five years he was there and I have a letter from Red Cross telling my great grandmother where her husband was.

    Crystal Geron



    Tpr. Andrew Jeffrey Evinou 4th Btn. Royal Tank Regiment

    He Will Get On With It

    My father, Andrew Jeffrey Evinou, served as a tank driver with the Fourth Royal Tank Regiment during WW2. He served with the British Eighth army in France and was one of the soldiers rescued off the beaches at Dunkirk. He told of how the ship he was on was hit by Messerschmitz and many were killed on deck. He was saved because he went below deck where tea was being served. After a very short leave during which time he married my mum, he was sent to North Africa. He fought with the Fourth armoured division at Tobruk where he was captured when his tank was hit. Dad lost a finger in that incident. He was a POW with the Italians for a year and a half then handed over to the Germans. He was a POW at stalag V111b and stalag V111a. He worked in the mines fourteen hours a day. He participated in the great march, but luckily survived it. He was ninety pounds in weight when he got home. I will always be my dad's proud daughter. He was eighty seven when he died in October of 2005. LEST WE FORGET.

    Janet Thompson



    Bernard Berco Iticovici

    We are searching for any information about Bernard (Berco) Iticovici or his relatives.

    Bernard (Berco) Iticovici was a French POW at Stalag VIII A, Gorlitz, Germany in 1941. He was a Romanian Jew who lived in Paris in the 1930’s. He was inducted into the French Army in 1940 and in June 1940 was captured during the Battle for France and sent as a French POW to Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz, in Germany. Bernard was at the Stalag in 1941 as prisoner #29347.

    It is possible that Bernard was present at Messaien’s first performance of his “Quartet for the End of Time” at Stalag VIIIA on a cold January day in 1941.

    The archives at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC contain a German deportation list showing that two men with the surname Iticovici were deported from Paris to Auschwitz in 1942: Itic Iticovici, born in Iasi, Romania, in 1905, and Joseph Iticovici who was listed as a French national It is possible that these victims may have been relatives of Bernard.

    We seek anyone who many know the fate of Bernard in the camp and after the war, or may know of any relatives of his that have survived.

    David Lewin



    John Cecil Banfield

    My father John Cecil Banfield was captured in Libya and was sent to C.C.N.52 P.M.3100 in Italy. He was then sent to Stalag VIII A in Germany on 13/03/1944. He was later sent to Hospital Stalag XI B on 23/02/1945. He did not talk much about his time as a POW, but what I did get out of him was not very good. He passed away in 1991, but I am still trying to find out what happened to him as a POW.

    G. Banfield



    Bernard Berco Iticovici

    We are searching for any information about Bernard (Berco) Iticovici or his relatives.

    Bernard (Berco) Iticovici was a French POW at Stalag VIII A, Gorlitz, Germany in 1941. He was a Romanian Jew who lived in Paris in the 1930’s. He was inducted into the French Army in 1940 and in June 1940 was captured during the Battle for France and sent as a French POW to Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz, in Germany. Bernard was at the Stalag in 1941 as prisoner #29347.

    It is possible that Bernard was present at Messaien’s first performance of his “Quartet for the End of Time” at Stalag VIIIA on a cold January day in 1941.

    The archives at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC contain a German deportation list showing that two men with the surname Iticovici were deported from Paris to Auschwitz in 1942: Itic Iticovici, born in Iasi, Romania, in 1905, and Joseph Iticovici who was listed as a French national It is possible that these victims may have been relatives of Bernard.

    We seek anyone who many know the fate of Bernard in the camp and after the war, or may know of any relatives of his that have survived.

    David Lewin



    Pte. George Tait 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders (Queens Own)

    George Tait

    George Tait was my grandfather. He served with the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders 1931 until 1938. He joined 1st Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders in 1939 and was captured at Beauvais in 1940. He spent the remainder of the war in Stalag 8A at Lamsdorf.

    Michelle Chapman



    Sgt. Laurie Noel Price 3rd Echelon 2nd New Zealand Division

    I was about 16 years of age when my uncle, Laurie Price returned to New Zealand after the war. As far as I know this information is correct and is written from memory of conversations within the family. He was my mother's younger brother, one of four who went to the war. Luckily all returned, as did my brother. Sgt. Laurie Price, was with the 3rd Echelon from New Zealand, was sent to Egypt. His next of kin was his mother, Charlotte Maude Price. He was captured in Greece and shipped to Bari, Italy. In Italy he had surgery possibly an appendectomy? Then he was sent to Udine before being moved to Stalag 8A.

    My uncle was one of the many men who walked across Germany. I understand he spent time at Bournemouth to recover before being shipped back to his home in New Zealand. He said very little about his experiences, except that his surgery was painful, the injection for the surgery didn't work, but the one they gave him afterwards behind the knee allowed him to pull hair out for years later without any pain. The prevalence of lice was mentioned and how his finger nails became V-shaped because it was better to stroke them away rather than scratch and break the skin. On the march across Germany, he and his mates found a cellar with potatoes, they boiled the first lot, dirt and all, the second lot they washed, and the third they peeled before eating them. Unfortunately, I do not know where he met up with the Allied forces. However, he did comment that the American POWs struggled more than most on the long march.

    He was a very quiet man who never married and died approximately in the 1960-1970s.




    Pte. Arthur Aldridge 1st Btn. Welch Regiment

    Arthur Aldridge was held as a POW in Camps 65 and 66 in Italy, and Stalags 8A, 8B, and 13D in Germany and Poland. He escaped twice in Italy and then on four occasions after being transferred to Germany and Poland. In Germany, he worked in coal mines.




    Sgt. Pieter DeValck 7th Infanterie Divisie

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_group of comrades

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_cemetery Gorlitz 1942

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_formation at cemetery

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_Stalag VIII-A photo date, 13.9.1942

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_Pieter is standing on the left

    I have written a book about his long march.

    Christopher



    Pte. Wilfred Donner Basham

    Wilfred Basham in 1940

    Wilfred Basham was captured at Tobruk and taken to Stalag 8A as POW number 81028. He worked as a miner.

    Colin Gates



    Pte. John Airy No. 3 Commando

    John Airy was a private in No. 3 Commando. His landing craft came ashore at Sword beach ten minutes behind Lovat and Millen. He didn't hear any pipes and his memories of landing was just the horrific scenes of carnage. Fifty years after D-Day he recounted his recollections of the landing: "There was spasmodic shelling on the beach as we arrived. Many bodies lay sprawled all over the beach, as young men of the East Yorkshire Regiment who had been in the first wave of the landing, now lay mutilated or dying". No. 3 Commando landed and marched inland to join up with Lovat's beloved No. 4 Commando. Before they had even spotted Lovat and his men, they could hear the bagpipes playing in front of them. Airy has pleasant memories of hearing 'Millin's cheerful playing' in the middle of the invasion.

    Our next task was to meet up with the 6th Airbourne Division who were holding the bridgehead over the River Orme. By 2 p.m. with Lord Lovatt at our head, his piper playing a cheerful tune, we then crossed the bridge under heavy sniper fire.

    Across the bridges, Airy volunteered for a stretcher party to move the wounded back down the line for safety. He came across a German patrol and was surrounded by Germans in a wood. Captured, Airy was transported across Germany into Poland, Stalag VIIIA. As a commando, the young private was interrogated and put into solitary confinement. He was then marched further across Poland, in ˜near artic conditions" and put to work in a Polish sugar factory for 12 hours a day. He laboured at the work camp for over a year and he received a ladle of soup and 1/5th of a loaf of bread per day. In February 1945, the Russians freed the POWs and Airy made his way to the River Ebve where he was finally rescued by the Americans.




    Pte. Maurice Gosling Cammish A Coy., 25th Btn. 2nd New Zealand Division

    Maury Cammish was captured in the Battle for El Mreir, just before the main battles for El Alamein, on 22 July 1942. He was transferred via camps in Benghazi (6 weeks), Bari (3 months) and Gruppignano (10 months) before being transferred to Stalag 344 in Nov 1943. He was subsequently transferred to Gorlitz. Dates are soft unfortunately. His written records show that he was held or worked at KDE 732 and at KDE 1. He took part in one strand of the 'Long Marches' throughout Feb-April 1945, eventually meeting up with American troops.

    Ian Brown



    L/Sgt. Frank Haresign Royal Lincolnshire Regiment

    Frank Haresign was captured in North Africa in 1943 and held in Stalag VIII-A.

    Keith Brown



    James R Warrilow 3rd Hussars

    James R Warrilow served with the 3rd Hussars British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch.

    Update: Unfortunately The Wartime Memories Project has lost touch with Dan, his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.

    Dan



    RF James 3/4th Sqd. County Of London Yeomanry

    RF James served with the 3/4th Sqd. County Of London Yeomanry British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch.

    Update: Unfortunately The Wartime Memories Project has lost touch with Dan, his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.

    Dan



    Georges Pieltani

    My great grandfather, Georges Pieltani, from Pepinster, Belgium was held in Stalag 8A. My grandmother told me stories how he and some of the others would kill a pig and have a barbecue or ruin the laundry on purpose. It was sort of their little ways of fighting the Germans discretely. I know he saw some really horrible things during the five years he was there and I have a letter from Red Cross telling my great grandmother where her husband was.

    Crystal Geron



    Tpr. Andrew Jeffrey Evinou 4th Btn. Royal Tank Regiment

    He Will Get On With It

    My father, Andrew Jeffrey Evinou, served as a tank driver with the Fourth Royal Tank Regiment during WW2. He served with the British Eighth army in France and was one of the soldiers rescued off the beaches at Dunkirk. He told of how the ship he was on was hit by Messerschmitz and many were killed on deck. He was saved because he went below deck where tea was being served. After a very short leave during which time he married my mum, he was sent to North Africa. He fought with the Fourth armoured division at Tobruk where he was captured when his tank was hit. Dad lost a finger in that incident. He was a POW with the Italians for a year and a half then handed over to the Germans. He was a POW at stalag V111b and stalag V111a. He worked in the mines fourteen hours a day. He participated in the great march, but luckily survived it. He was ninety pounds in weight when he got home. I will always be my dad's proud daughter. He was eighty seven when he died in October of 2005. LEST WE FORGET.

    Janet Thompson



    Bernard Berco Iticovici

    We are searching for any information about Bernard (Berco) Iticovici or his relatives.

    Bernard (Berco) Iticovici was a French POW at Stalag VIII A, Gorlitz, Germany in 1941. He was a Romanian Jew who lived in Paris in the 1930’s. He was inducted into the French Army in 1940 and in June 1940 was captured during the Battle for France and sent as a French POW to Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz, in Germany. Bernard was at the Stalag in 1941 as prisoner #29347.

    It is possible that Bernard was present at Messaien’s first performance of his “Quartet for the End of Time” at Stalag VIIIA on a cold January day in 1941.

    The archives at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC contain a German deportation list showing that two men with the surname Iticovici were deported from Paris to Auschwitz in 1942: Itic Iticovici, born in Iasi, Romania, in 1905, and Joseph Iticovici who was listed as a French national It is possible that these victims may have been relatives of Bernard.

    We seek anyone who many know the fate of Bernard in the camp and after the war, or may know of any relatives of his that have survived.

    David Lewin



    John Cecil Banfield

    My father John Cecil Banfield was captured in Libya and was sent to C.C.N.52 P.M.3100 in Italy. He was then sent to Stalag VIII A in Germany on 13/03/1944. He was later sent to Hospital Stalag XI B on 23/02/1945. He did not talk much about his time as a POW, but what I did get out of him was not very good. He passed away in 1991, but I am still trying to find out what happened to him as a POW.

    G. Banfield



    Bernard Berco Iticovici

    We are searching for any information about Bernard (Berco) Iticovici or his relatives.

    Bernard (Berco) Iticovici was a French POW at Stalag VIII A, Gorlitz, Germany in 1941. He was a Romanian Jew who lived in Paris in the 1930’s. He was inducted into the French Army in 1940 and in June 1940 was captured during the Battle for France and sent as a French POW to Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz, in Germany. Bernard was at the Stalag in 1941 as prisoner #29347.

    It is possible that Bernard was present at Messaien’s first performance of his “Quartet for the End of Time” at Stalag VIIIA on a cold January day in 1941.

    The archives at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC contain a German deportation list showing that two men with the surname Iticovici were deported from Paris to Auschwitz in 1942: Itic Iticovici, born in Iasi, Romania, in 1905, and Joseph Iticovici who was listed as a French national It is possible that these victims may have been relatives of Bernard.

    We seek anyone who many know the fate of Bernard in the camp and after the war, or may know of any relatives of his that have survived.

    David Lewin



    Pte. George Tait 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders (Queens Own)

    George Tait

    George Tait was my grandfather. He served with the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders 1931 until 1938. He joined 1st Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders in 1939 and was captured at Beauvais in 1940. He spent the remainder of the war in Stalag 8A at Lamsdorf.

    Michelle Chapman



    Sgt. Laurie Noel Price 3rd Echelon 2nd New Zealand Division

    I was about 16 years of age when my uncle, Laurie Price returned to New Zealand after the war. As far as I know this information is correct and is written from memory of conversations within the family. He was my mother's younger brother, one of four who went to the war. Luckily all returned, as did my brother. Sgt. Laurie Price, was with the 3rd Echelon from New Zealand, was sent to Egypt. His next of kin was his mother, Charlotte Maude Price. He was captured in Greece and shipped to Bari, Italy. In Italy he had surgery possibly an appendectomy? Then he was sent to Udine before being moved to Stalag 8A.

    My uncle was one of the many men who walked across Germany. I understand he spent time at Bournemouth to recover before being shipped back to his home in New Zealand. He said very little about his experiences, except that his surgery was painful, the injection for the surgery didn't work, but the one they gave him afterwards behind the knee allowed him to pull hair out for years later without any pain. The prevalence of lice was mentioned and how his finger nails became V-shaped because it was better to stroke them away rather than scratch and break the skin. On the march across Germany, he and his mates found a cellar with potatoes, they boiled the first lot, dirt and all, the second lot they washed, and the third they peeled before eating them. Unfortunately, I do not know where he met up with the Allied forces. However, he did comment that the American POWs struggled more than most on the long march.

    He was a very quiet man who never married and died approximately in the 1960-1970s.




    Pte. Arthur Aldridge 1st Btn. Welch Regiment

    Arthur Aldridge was held as a POW in Camps 65 and 66 in Italy, and Stalags 8A, 8B, and 13D in Germany and Poland. He escaped twice in Italy and then on four occasions after being transferred to Germany and Poland. In Germany, he worked in coal mines.




    Sgt. Pieter DeValck 7th Infanterie Divisie

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_group of comrades

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_cemetery Gorlitz 1942

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_formation at cemetery

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_Stalag VIII-A photo date, 13.9.1942

    262927_Pieter Devalck_7th Infanterie Divisie_Pieter is standing on the left

    I have written a book about his long march.

    Christopher



    Pte. Wilfred Donner Basham

    Wilfred Basham in 1940

    Wilfred Basham was captured at Tobruk and taken to Stalag 8A as POW number 81028. He worked as a miner.

    Colin Gates



    Pte. John Airy No. 3 Commando

    John Airy was a private in No. 3 Commando. His landing craft came ashore at Sword beach ten minutes behind Lovat and Millen. He didn't hear any pipes and his memories of landing was just the horrific scenes of carnage. Fifty years after D-Day he recounted his recollections of the landing: "There was spasmodic shelling on the beach as we arrived. Many bodies lay sprawled all over the beach, as young men of the East Yorkshire Regiment who had been in the first wave of the landing, now lay mutilated or dying". No. 3 Commando landed and marched inland to join up with Lovat's beloved No. 4 Commando. Before they had even spotted Lovat and his men, they could hear the bagpipes playing in front of them. Airy has pleasant memories of hearing 'Millin's cheerful playing' in the middle of the invasion.

    Our next task was to meet up with the 6th Airbourne Division who were holding the bridgehead over the River Orme. By 2 p.m. with Lord Lovatt at our head, his piper playing a cheerful tune, we then crossed the bridge under heavy sniper fire.

    Across the bridges, Airy volunteered for a stretcher party to move the wounded back down the line for safety. He came across a German patrol and was surrounded by Germans in a wood. Captured, Airy was transported across Germany into Poland, Stalag VIIIA. As a commando, the young private was interrogated and put into solitary confinement. He was then marched further across Poland, in ˜near artic conditions" and put to work in a Polish sugar factory for 12 hours a day. He laboured at the work camp for over a year and he received a ladle of soup and 1/5th of a loaf of bread per day. In February 1945, the Russians freed the POWs and Airy made his way to the River Ebve where he was finally rescued by the Americans.




    Pte. Maurice Gosling Cammish A Coy., 25th Btn. 2nd New Zealand Division

    Maury Cammish was captured in the Battle for El Mreir, just before the main battles for El Alamein, on 22 July 1942. He was transferred via camps in Benghazi (6 weeks), Bari (3 months) and Gruppignano (10 months) before being transferred to Stalag 344 in Nov 1943. He was subsequently transferred to Gorlitz. Dates are soft unfortunately. His written records show that he was held or worked at KDE 732 and at KDE 1. He took part in one strand of the 'Long Marches' throughout Feb-April 1945, eventually meeting up with American troops.

    Ian Brown



    L/Sgt. Frank Haresign Royal Lincolnshire Regiment

    Frank Haresign was captured in North Africa in 1943 and held in Stalag VIII-A.

    Keith Brown







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