11 photographs of Soviet prisoners of war in a German Stalag camp during World War II.
The photos depict daily life activities in the Stalag camp - walking in the yard, exercising, sports events and more. Some of the photos are signed on the back with the camp's ink stamp.
During World War II, Nazi Germany sought to maintain the appearance of complying with international law and therefore established special camps for prisoners of war from Allied armies of Western countries called Stalag (abbreviation of Stammlager - main camp with subcamps). According to the 1929 Third Geneva Convention, these camps were intended only for prisoners of war, not civilians. The Red Cross was allowed to visit the camps and the prisoners received relatively decent treatment. Due to conditions that allowed "leisure" hours during the day, the prisoners engaged in cultural and sports activities. The camps included a field surrounded by barbed wire, where thousands of people were crammed in with usually no place to sit or lie down. Often there was no shelter from the very cold Polish and Belarusian winter weather. Prisoners of different nationalities were usually separated from each other by barbed wire fences that divided each Stalag by nation separately. In each Stalag, the German army established subcamps called Arbeitskommando to hold prisoners near specific workplaces, whether factories, coal mines, quarries, farms or railway maintenance, where they were employed most of the day in forced labor. For many prisoners, engaging in leisure and pastime was a matter of sheer survival, as it was the only thing that lifted their spirits to continue struggling for freedom. Yves Durand in his book "The Daily Lives of Prisoners of War" (Paris 1987) writes: "The collective life in the camps gave birth to spiritual, cultural and sporting events, at various levels of sophistication but often of amazing quality. They testify to the extraordinary resources from which the human spirit can draw even under the harshest conditions." (page 173).
Same size: 9x14 cm. Divided on back for use as postcard. Good condition.
