Fürstenberg (Oder)
Like the other stalags, camps for soldiers and non-commissioned officers, Stalag III B was intended for a short stay. After registration, the prisoners were sent to work in the newly established branches of the camp or in the arms industry to work for cities, municipalities or in agriculture in Brandenburg. In the summer of 1940, after the construction of barracks and other buildings and facilities was completed, the first group of Polish prisoners of war were deprived of their proper status and handed over to the labour office as forced labourers forbidden to leave the area. Officially, since mid-1940 no Polish prisoners of war were recorded. However, it is likely that Poles without the status of a prisoner of war were kept in the stalag at least until February 1942 and were described as forced laborers. When they died, they were buried in various places, no longer identifiable today.
The situation changed on the 4th of December 1944 when a transport with 200 prisoners of war - Home Army soldiers and participants of the Warsaw Uprising - arrived from Stalag III A Luckenwalde. By the time of evacuation in January 1945, more than 100,000 prisoners had passed through the camp. They were treated in various way - depending on their origin and nationality - and were forced to work hard, despite insufficient amount of food and poor medical care, as a result of which they would get ill, often terminally. On the 28th of April 1945 the prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army.
The Russians, who constituted a national group with the highest number of fatalities, were treated the worst. More than 4,000 deceased Russians, first buried at the municipal cemetery and then as nameless in mass graves, were exhumed in 1951 and solemnly buried in the centre of the newly established town of Eisenhüttenstadt at the Cemetery of Russian Heroes at the Square of German and Russian Friendship (today's Remembrance Square).
In contrast to the Russian graves and those of the heroes of the anti-fascist movement, remembered by the former GDR authorities, the graves of Western coalition prisoners at the Evangelical cemetery in Kastanienstrasse in Eisenhüttenstadt-Fürstenberg fell into oblivion and were more and more neglected. A memorial stone, placed on the edge of the rectangular war plot, commemorating 101 prisoners of Stalag III B and forced labourers who died in Fürstenberg, dates back to 1966. After the reunification of Germany, the memory of the partially preserved camp began to return very slowly. An exhibition opened in 2003 presented the history of the stalag and the fate of the prisoners of war. Afterwards, the exhibition was placed as a permanent feature in the municipal museum in Eisenhüttenstadt. The memorial stone restored in 2004, on both sides of which there are plaques with the names of the victims by nationality, bears an inscription in German:
Peace to the prisoners of war resting here
[translated from Polish]
Below there is a list of names. Next to it, there is a stone commemorating the death of Italian prisoners of war, set up by the Italian War Graves Authority.
It is possible that the list of deceased Poles from Stalag III B is incomplete and that it should also include:
FREJBRUN JAKUB Seaman
* 6.2.1909
† 3.6.1942
Alphabetical list of Polish victims of the Second World War buried at the cemetery in Eisenhüttenstadt-Fürstenberg (preserving the original spelling, also appearing on the memorial plaque):
ALEXSANDROWICZ ANTON
ASZER ITZECK
AUERBACH MOSES
BIEDZISK JOSEPH
BCYBOK JUDA
BEDNARSKI WLADYSLAW
BRZEZINSKI JTZEK
FRANKENSTEIN DAVID
GRZYBORSKI ABRAM
JANUPICH LEOKADIA
KALONSKI LAIB
KROY ABRAM
KRYSIAK ANTON
LAMUS HERZ
MAJKOWSKI ROMAN
MIERZWICKI KASIMIERZ
MOCHNIKI ARON
MODRZEMAK FRANZ
NEUHAUS WOLF
MOSZKOWITSCH SCHLAMA
NOWACKI WLADYSLAW
NOWATKOWSKI JOSEF
OLOSEWSKI WLADYSLAW
OPIESZYNSKI ABRAM
OSTROWSKI JOEL
PAWLIKOWSKI BOLESLAW
PIEKNIEWSKI JOSEF
PUJAN JAN
RZEPKA SZAJA
SAFRIAN STANISLAUS
SEPANIAK ANTON
STRASZYNSKI HENRYK
STEPNIAK FRANUSSEK
SZPIGEL HENOCH
TURMAICSKI WLADYSLAW
SASKI MORDKA
VIRPOMNIAK ANTON
WYSZOGROSKI MORDKA
WEISELFISCH JOSEF
ZEMPOLINSKI BARUCH
ZIMNY WŁADYSŁAW
ŻELASKO MICHAŁ