Liberation of Stalag IV-A Hohenstein

[PhilBeeNZ]

Dear ADM199:

Had no idea there were that many work commandos!
Thanx for the effort of my behalf.
I'll keep hunting too!

[ADM199]

The Camp History tells us that at one time there were 23,782 POW attached to the Camp.

Not all were British and Commonwealth POW, who for the most part worked in the Lignite mines.
Grube Heye 111, Grube Ostfeld, Grube Erika and Grube Brigitta which were the main ones in 41 - 43.

[Barbara Saltmarsh]

The Camp was liberated by the Russians in April 1945.My father was there and was back in England by May 1945.He worked in the open caste brown coal mine Grube Erika

[Carole EM]

The Camp was liberated by the Russians in April 1945.My father was there and was back in England by May 1945.He worked in the open caste brown coal mine Grube Erika

Hello to all: my grandmother's brother (this is the French army) was a prisonner there from end of summer/ fall of 1940 and until the liberation by the then Soviet army. STALAG IV A definitely was liberated by the Soviets.

He worked in a farming commando. (Remember wartime also = no more horse available). He came from the 21 RI regiment of the French army (infantry, professional military) who lost all of their officers in reconnaissance patrols in may-june 1940, whereby the regiment was left without officer and voted as to whether to surrender or continue fighting, then again after the June 17th capitulation treaty by Petain voted whether to stop fighting or continue. About 600 men died in the fightings during the last month (june 1940). They had been positioned to the far East of France and by choosing to continue fighting to the end, they secured the retreat of the French army (it seems after the capitulation treaty that Germans still were shooting at then-to-be-considered POW troops, hence the choice of this regiment to "sacrifice" themselves, only a few survived as they were trapped by the Germans).

The STALAG IV A seems to have been a camp where inmates had a fair or fairer treatment, as according to what my grandmother told me, this was a camp where the Germans put those troops they had "respect for" for having been "good" or "tough" soldiers, the prionners seem to have been given some more degrees of freedom for getting organised on their own, (and were erving in commando outside the camp) although the STALAG was quite fortified in some parts of the camp ( the camp had an old time fortress on a rock).

If some one knows how to research more about camplife there could you please help me?

Is there some kind of "museum" or historic foundation or curator regarding the STALAGs or this particular one in Germany locally?

Also I have a photo of my grand-uncle photographed with some fellow cmp prisonners and...a woman, quite nicely  (decently) dressed for wartimes and in front of them a playing toddler. Who might this woman be? The camp commander's wife? A Red Cross official of the type bringing parcels? A nurse? She wear a dark coat and she has dark hair and seems to be 35-ish...

Please excuse me if I posted under a wrong thread I'm not that familiar with using forums and this is my first posting here, found thanks to the question about who liberated the camp.

[Véronique Bouffioux]

My Grand-father, André Blaise was held in Stalag IV A a s a prisonner of war.  He was Belgian.  This is what he said about this expérience :
 He was with other Belgians : Jean Buchet, Henry Gary, Marcel Gaspard, Georges Hainaut, Léon Mousty, Ernest Simon et Joseph Stevaux.
In June 1914 he was sent to work in a farm, he was away every day untill 8 in the evening and was leaving at 6 in the morning. His daily food ration was 2 slices of bread and 4 potatoes. Work Kommando 1064 en 1944. He left Hohenstein on the 8th of May 1945; the Russians were there just an hour after the cease fire was announced.
That's all I know.  He met my Russian grand-mother in the farm where he was working...  they came back together in Belgian, got married...  Some nice events happened during those grim times !

[ajhogdog]

My father, Clinton H. Hutton, was also a POW held first in Stalag IVB and then transferred to Stalag IVA.  Here is what he said about his time as a POW and his liberation from IVA.

 "We were marched across France, our feet frostbitten, before being loaded on boxcars for transport to Germany. During the trip, the trains were often hit with friendly fire, forcing us to take cover. During one of these raids, one of the other captives ran too far and was killed by the Germans, who thought he was trying to escape. We were moved among many different Prisoner of War camps, and finally placed at Stalag IVA. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my son Walter had been born on July 4th, the same day I was captured. I would later look back on that day and note that my wife and I both went through hell that day. However, as I had requested Blanche was not notified of my MIA status until July 15. Later she was also contacted by several strangers, some outside of the US, who had heard me identify myself as a POW on a Ham radio broadcast. The government notified her in November that I was indeed being held as a POW. She knew I was alive, but not if or when I would ever be returning home for her and my child.
  I was held in the POW camps for 10 months. We were not tortured, though the Germans forced us to stand at attention for hours in an attempt to get us to divulge information. I was given only 3 Red Cross packages during my imprisonment, though often German villagers would leave food for us as they passed by. Though Blanche tried to send me several letters, I only received two or three. At least I was reassured that she and Walter were doing well, and that they missed me terribly. I attempted to escape on one occasion with 3 or 4 other prisoners. We were able to simply walk away from the camp when the guards were not looking. We walked through several small German villages before being stopped by a Nazi general who promptly returned us to the camp.
  Eventually it became clear that the war would soon end and that the Germans would be defeated. On May 7, 1945, the German guards changed into civilian clothes and told us that we were free. They walked with us toward the American lines until they turned to go one direction and pointed us in the other. We were overjoyed when before long we came upon American soldiers, who greeted us with much celebration and even cigarettes. "