Original Items: One-of-a-kind set. Included in this set are two aluminum ID tags as worn by Allied POWs in German Prisoner of War camps during World War Two. They each measure 6cm x 4cm. They read as follows:

STAGLAG VIII-C
Nr: 5105

and

STALAG VIII-A
Nr: 28268

Stalag VIII-C was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp, near Sagan, Germany, (now Żagań, Poland). It was adjacent to the famous Stalag Luft III, and was built at the beginning of World War II, occupying 48 ha (120 acres).

Camp history
The camp was built in September 1939 to house several thousand Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. In a ruthless breach of the Third Geneva Convention most of these prisoners were deprived of their P.O.W. status in June 1940 and transferred to labor camps.

French and Belgian soldiers taken prisoner during the Battle of France took their place, many of them from Algeria, Morocco and Senegal. In 1941 more prisoners arrived from the Balkans Campaign mostly British, Canadian, Greek and Yugoslav. These were followed by Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa. In late 1941 nearly 50,000 prisoners were crowded into space designed for one third that number. Conditions were appalling, starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives. By early 1942 the Soviet prisoners had been transferred to other camps, particularly to Stalag VIII-E, Neuhammer.

In mid-September 1943, further numbers of British, ANZAC, and South African prisoners began to arrive by train from Italy. Most of these men had been previously been captured during the course of the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa, and had since been detained in Mussolini's Italy. However, upon news of the Italian armistice, German forces were directed to seize administration of the Italian prison camps, and within weeks, began the process of entraining allied p.o.w's. for transfer north, into Germany; many were sent to Stalag VIII-C.

Evacuation and repatriation
In early February 1945, many of the prisoners, particularly British and Commonwealth, were marched westward ahead of the Soviet offensive. The German camp command destroyed all documentation and evidence of the crimes committed. 14 February the Red Army entered the camp. They later used the camp to house German prisoners. In 1961 a monument was erected at the cemetery in remembrance of the thousands who died and are buried here. In 1971 the "Martyrdom Museum of Allied Prisoners of War" was established on the site of the camp to house mementos and records of both Stalag VIII-C and Stalag Luft III.


Stalag VIII-A was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp, located just to the south of the town of Görlitz, Lower Silesia, east of the River Neisse (now Zgorzelec, Poland).


Camp history
Originally a HJ camp, in October 1939 it was modified to house about 15,000 Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. It was initially a transit camp or Dulag located on an 18-hectare field alongside Ulica Lubańska, renamed as Stalag VIIIA on 23 September 1939. At the end of December 1939 the prisoners were transferred to the main camp in Moys, located on the right side of the road from Görlitz to Reichenau. It was the first prisoner of war camp in the military district VIII Breslau (Wroclaw). The camp covered about 30 ha.

By June 1940 most of the Poles had been transferred to other camps and replaced with Belgian and French troops taken prisoner during the Battle of France. At one time there were over 30,000 jammed into facilities designed for 15,000. In 1941 a separate compound was created to house Soviet prisoners. In 1943 2,500 British Commonwealth soldiers came from the battles in Italy, among them residents from the British Isles, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Later in the same year more than 6000 Italian soldiers came[1] from Albania. A total of 47,328, the highest number of prisoners in Stalag VIII A was registered in September 1944. Numerically, Frenchmen were in the majority, followed by the Russians, Italians, Belgians, Britons and the Yugoslavs. Finally in late December 1944 1,800 Americans arrived, captured in the Battle of the Bulge.

On 14 February 1945 the Americans and British were marched out of the camp westward in advance of the Soviet offensive into Germany. The evacuation process was carried out gradually through to May 1945. The evacuation took place on foot, with all means of transport driving in front of the people for military purposes. The Long March claimed further victims. Some of the prisoners were taken to Bavaria, the others to Thuringia, where they were freed by the Allies. The last evacuation of the camp took place on 7 May 1945, when the Soviet army freed the prisoners.

After the war, many graves of western soldiers were exhumed and sent back to their home countries. In 1948 the city council of Zgorzelec decided to have the barracks dismantled in order to use the materials to rebuild Warsaw and other Polish towns.

In 1976 a memorial was erected on the site of the former commandant’s office by French and Polish veterans who had been POWs. On the sandstone plate next to the memorial it says: Stalag VIIIA: A place sanctified by the blood and martyrdom of the prisoners of war of the anti-AH coalition during the Second World War – 22.VII.1976 French veterans of the camp arranged for a marble slab to be attached to the memorial in 1994. On the slab it says in Polish and French: “1939 Stalag VIIIA 1945: Through this camp walked, in it lived and suffered ten thousands of prisoners of war”.

Notable inmates
It was at VIII-A that Olivier Messiaen, a French prisoner, finished composing Quatuor pour la fin du temps, a famous work of chamber music. With the help of a friendly German guard, he acquired manuscript paper and pencils, and was able to assemble three other POWs to help him perform the piece for the rest of the camp.