News

In December 2021, owing to a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and money put by visitors into the Museum's donation box, was possible to complete the purchase of two collections of prisoner-of-war artefacts, which are currently undergoing inventory work.

The first collection consists of one hundred prisoner-of-war identity tags of soldiers who were held in captivity by the Werhmach in Stalag VIII B (344) Lamsdorf. They are a tangible testimony to the presence of prisoners-of-war in the camp complex, which during World War II was located in Lamsdorf (now it is the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice).

The second collection is not so ordinary, although it also consists of POW identity tags (11) but this time from oflags II E Neubrandenburg, IV D Elsterhorst, VIII H Oberlangendorf and stalags VIII C Sagan, 308 (VIII E) Neuhammer am Queis, and Luft 6 Heydekrug. Apart from them, there is an eye-catching cup made from a shell casing by British prisoners-of-war in Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf, on which there is an engraved symbol of the Railways and Harbours Brigade and the Latin motto Semper paratus (‘Always Ready’), as well as a copper knife with the inscriptions Dulag 125 and Polozk 1942. Another interesting artefact is a richly decorated with engravings copper kettle from 1893 which belonged to a soldier of the Tsar army during World War I. Among the names of German prisoners-of-war camps depicted on it, there is also mentioned Lamsdorf. The kettle will enrich our small set Museum objects concerning the history of our memorial site from the years 1914-1918.

The total value of the purchase is over PLN 10 000. We would like to express our thanks to everyone who made it possible!