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Iain Robertson

Geneaology

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Prisoners of War

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My late father in Law, Signalman Jim Wilson of the Royal Corps of Signals was captured in Greece in 1941 and was interned as a prisoner of war in BAB 20 (Bau und Arbeitsbattalion 20 and 40) which was a work camp of Stalag XXA Thorn.
BAB is an abbreviation of “Bau und Arbeitsbattalion”.
This camp was situated in an area that, before 1946, was known as Upper Silesia. It is now part of modern Poland, approximately 40 km from Kracow. The camp held just over

- Prisoners of War

1000 men and was located within the perimeter of an enormous synthetic oil refinery known to the American forces as Blechhammer South and to the British Forces as Heydebreck or Reigersfeld. Situated in the immediate area were several other Allied POW camps, namely, BAB 21, BAB 48 and the Lamsdorf 8B work camps : E711, E711A, E3 and E714.

Possibly as many as 40,000 men were used as forced labour on the two factory sites at Blechammer South and Blechammer North and the British Camps shared many common links for two and a half years.

Part of the Memorial in the British War Cemetery - Prague
Where a number of the Prisoners are interred.

Signalman Jim Wilson right
And two unidentified friends

In 1944, USAAF planes were able to reach this area for the first time and for six months it became a priority Allied target of WW2. Needless to say there were many casualties within the camps.

A group of prisoners outside a hut.

When on January 22nd, the Russian Front advanced to within a few miles of Blechhammer, the German authorities ordered the evacuation of all POW Camps in the area. Marching up to 30 km a day in freezing blizzards, and with little food to sustain them, the men marched more than 500 miles across war torn Europe to Germany. Some POW’s were shot by their guards and many others were casualties to frostbite, dysentery or exhaustion. However, worse was to come when they reached Bayreuth for, in that week, it too became a primary Allied bombing target

I am helping with research towards a book about these specific camps, and work has begun on a Memorial Roll to honour the men who died in captivity. At present they lie in graves or have their names recorded on memorials which are scattered across Europe with nothing to link them together as the comrades they were.

If you were in one of these camps or had a relative interred there we would be pleased to hear from you.