Stalag VI C Oberlangen was located on marshes near the Third Reich’s German-Dutch border. 1706 female participants of the Warsaw Rising were deported into this Stalag in November 1944. The conditions were extremely bad: rotten wooden barracks, used lice-infected bedticks, overcrowding (200 women per room). They were undernourished and faced with low temperatures they often contracted such diseases as nephritis, bronchitis and pneumonia.
Despite all of this, the Polish POWs organized underground teaching, lectures, training courses, many cultural and religious events. The Polish turned their misery into some value. The general rules revolved around discipline, solidarity and camaraderie. The VI C Stalag became, as recalled by one of the former POWs, a tiny state for women - the female soldiers of the Home Army.
On 12 April 1945 the Oberlangen camp was liberated by the 1st Armoured Division under the command of Gen. Stanisław Maczek. The first reconnaissance unit composed of a dozen of soldiers reached the camp as the first. They rammed the entrance gate with their Sherman dragging the barbed wire fence behind into the camp.
The emaciated POWs were taken to the former Niederlangen concentration camp. Their fate led them either to Italy where they joined General Anders 2nd Army Corps or they decided to return to Poland. Many would choose to emigrate. The former KL Niderlangen was empty by September 1945.
In 2012 the Warsaw Rising Museum bought a collection of original photographs that were taken in Stalag VI C Oberlangen. They constitute the most precious POW camps related photographs in our collection.
