Collection of applications of prisoners of war of the Stalag II B, Hammerstein, to the USSR Embassy in Berlin for Soviet citizenship

Collection description

Holding institution (official language):: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma

Title:: Collection of applications of prisoners of war of the Stalag II B, Hammerstein, to the USSR Embassy in Berlin for Soviet citizenship

Title (official language):: Podania jeńców Stalagu II B w Hammerstein (obecnie Czarne woj. pomorskie) do Ambasady ZSRR w Berlinie o nadanie obywatelstwa sowieckiego

Scope and content:: The collection contains applications submitted by prisoners of war of Jewish descent who were inmates at Stalag II B camp in Hammerstein, Germany:

Surnames A–D: unit 1

Surnames E–J: unit 2

Surnames K-O: unit 3

Surnames P–Ż: unit 4

Archival history:: The fund was transferred to the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) in the 1990s. No specific details are known.

Administrative/biographical history:: With their invasion of Polish territory in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union finally agreed as to where the borders should be set between the two invader countries. One consequence of their arrangement was a prisoners-of-war exchange agreement, which concerned Polish Army soldiers based on the territorial criterion. The agreement enabled the POWs inhabiting the Red Army-occupied area before September 1939 to seek the status of Soviet Union citizen, which offered especially to Jewish-born POWs an opportunity to be delivered from the hands of the Nazis. The names of some of these POWs can be found in later-date lists of Jewish prisoners of the camp at 7 Lipowa Street in Lublin. These lists are contained in two funds: the camps’ (file 209/9; 209/16; 209/302); and the Jewish council of Lublin (file 253/3 – File re. Jewish POWs of the camp at 7 Lipowa Street, Lublin).

Access, restrictions:: Digitised documents are accessible in the reading room of the Jewish Historical Institute.

Finding aids:: A catalogue in Polish was compiled in 2012 and is accessible online.

It includes a database of names.

Author of the description:: Monika Taras; Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma; 2015