Oberlangen

Former prisoners of the concentration camp number VI in Oberlangen during the official opening of the commemorative plaque in 1995

From its establishment in 1933, camp no. VI in Oberlangen changed its nature several times. First it was used as a training camp for fire brigades. From 1934 it was used by the judiciary as a penal institution and a high security labour camp for about 1,000 prisoners. In September 1939 the camp was handed over to the general command of the German Army which transformed it into a prisoner-of-war camp governed by the VI B camp administration from Neu Versen. After Polish soldiers were kept here, from autumn 1941 about 2,000 Soviet prisoners were located in the camp. In 1943 the camp was transformed into a camp for officers. In August 1944 about 5,000 interned Italian officers and over 900 Soviet officers were kept here. In December 1944 Polish female soldiers were transported to the camp. They stayed in here until it was liberated by the soldiers from General Maczek's 1st Polish Armoured Division on the 12th of April 1945.

Because of poor hygienic conditions, insufficient nutrition, lack of appropriate clothes and hard labour, several thousand prisoner died during the war in the fully packed camp in Oberlangen. At the war cemetery in Oberlangen, located in the woods, about 2 kilometres from a memorial plaque, market with a road sign, there are 62 graves of Soviet soldiers, bearing their names. Moreover, from 2,000 to 4,000 prisoners of war, mainly from the Soviet Union, were buried in mass graves. According to information from a former soldier of the 1st Polish Armoured Division, Mr. Czesław Szewczyk, four soldiers died in the area of the camp during fights or as a result of incurred wounds. Three of them were buried at this cemetery:

Corporal KLANK ZBIGNIEW * 16.06.1921 Białystok, † 27.07.1945 Oberlangen, R-C. Serv-Number 1921/---, ID-Number 221865/XB

Lance Corporal Rifles NAPIERALSKI JAN * 23.06.1922, † 13.04.1945, R-C. Serv-Number 1922/69/I-60253, 2nd Armoured Regiment

Volunteer NEUMAN EUGENIA * 20.01.1922 Warsaw, † 13.04.1945

Lance Corporal Rifles MIARKA KAZIMIERZ * 19.11.1916 Łódź, † 13.04.1945 Oberlangen, 2nd Armoured Regiment, buried at the war cemetery in Groningen (the Netherlands)

Today, in the area of the former camp, there is cropland and no buildings or camp facilities are preserved. On the 8th of May 1995, on the 50th anniversary of World War II ending, a memorial plaque was officially unveiled at the site of the former camp and wreaths were placed here. The ceremony was attended - among others - by former participants of the Warsaw Uprising, namely female prisoners of the concentration camp in Oberlangen and of other camps in Emsland. The ceremony was also attended by the liberators of the camp of April 1945 - former soldiers from the 1st Polish Armoured Division, Andrzej Przewoźnik - Secretary General of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, Consul Stanisław Sulowski from the Consulate General in Hamburg, representatives of Polis minority organisation, regional and local authorities as well as the inhabitants of neighbouring towns and school students.

The Polish inscription on the memorial plaque reads:

PAMIĘCI

POLSKICH JEŃCÓW WOJENNYCH

2000 PODCHORĄŻYCH

WIĘZIONYCH W L. 1940–1941

W NIELUDZKICH WARUNKACH

W OBOZACH

OBERLANGEN, FULLEN I WESUWE

ZMUSZANYCH DO PRACY NA BAGNACH

ORAZ

1728 KOBIET – ŻOŁNIERZY I OFICERÓW

ARMII KRAJOWEJ