WARTIME GUIDES

Trip to Poland

Fort XIII during WW II Fort XIV and Fort XIII today

According to "Geneva records" there were 11.115 British POWs kept in Stalag XXA in 1941, at the end of war there were 5.099. source: Geneva records t.1-4, AMJW

Here is a part of the Prisoner of War newspaper from September 1942, at the bottom of the page you can see a short description of Stalag XXA camp organisation.

 This map presents The ring, namely 17 forts aroud Toruń which were built in the XIX century after Franco-Prussian War to protect Torun from Russian invasion. Seven forts were used as POW camps (fort XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII) during WW2. This map shows the organisation of Fort XIII and its Forced Work Camps 13A and 13B source: Bundersamt fur Kartographie und Geodasie 2006  A detailed description of Stalag's organisation source: E. Traugott, Der Feste Platz Thorn 1945, Westprussen Jahrbuch.

A part from Russian propaganda movie which shows liberation of Stalag XXA in 1945. This movie presents English and French soldiers who are leaving Torun. It is worth mentioning that liberation took place in the winter, so this sunny weather you can see in the movie is slightly inappripriate. Moreover, from the sources we have found, the liberation looked slightly diffrent: "It was an uphill grade and the road was ice-covered and slippery. Russian, French and British prisoners jostled up the road in their hundreds. Soon we gained the comparative shelter of the woods but nobody thought of stopping for a rest.(...) Wouldn’t we ever stop for a rest? Then, after covering about 12 kilometres in all, we were directed off the road to a small farmhouse. Gratefully we lowered the stretchers to the ground and sat about resti...