A rare piece of history from the Warsaw Rising 1944

[StefanM]

The whole problem with this story is the fact that there was no POW camp existing at this time in Belgium!
This could be a forced labour camp, but not a POW camp.

You are most likely right, because many of the PoW insurgents (and other deported Varsovian's) were used as forced labour by the German's.

[StefanM]

Now that the ryngraf has arrived from Warszawa, some better photos of this little rarity:





Below: Close-up of the Madonna graphic which is a simplified rendition of the 17th century "Ostra Brama Madonna" or "Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn" formerly in Wilno, Poland but now Vilnius, Lithuania.



Below: Our Lady of Ostra Brama (Ausros Varty Madona) is an unusual portrayal of Madonna as she is depicted without infant Jesus.




Below: Another depiction of Our Lady of Ostra Brama is featured on this NSZ ryngraf from Białystok district in Poland.





Below: A field-made ryngraf (posted by: kindzjal ) but with a depiction of the more usually found "Black Madonna of Częstochowa" (Czarna Madonna or Matka Boska Częstochowska) which is composed of the Madonna figure and the infant Jesus.



Below: Matka Boska Częstochowska icon of the Virgin Mary housed at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa.



Below: Another ryngraf from the Polish underground featuring the icon of Matka Boska Częstochowska

[kindzjal]

Very nice!

[StefanM]

Some further information related to the field hospital where the ryngraf was created during the Warsaw Rising:

Field Hospital No. 1 at ul. Wspólna 27 of "Bakcyl" Sanitariat Okręgu Warszawskiego Armii Krajowej (or "Bacillus" Medical/Hospital District of Warsaw Home Army) was organised by Christine Schild-Stopnicka ps. "Katarzyna (or Catherine)". The commander of the hospital was Dr. George Szulc, and chief surgeon was Col. Tadeusz Bętkowski. Working alongside them was surgeon Cpt. Dr. Hedda from Gorzow, ophthalmologist Dr. Janusz Januszewski, otolaryngologist doc. Dr. Stanislaw Kmita, internist prof. Dr. Joseph Grott and gynecologist Dr. Wladyslaw Duchniewski.

The field hospital was an organisational unit of the Wojsk Korpusu Bezpieczeństwa (or Security Corps) caring for around 150 wounded at a time. Jadwiga Irena Pniewska served as head nurse with Joanna Sitek. To begin with the field hospital was located on the first floor offices of Wspólna 27 but heavy German artillery shelling and ariel bombing later forced the staff to evacuate the sick and wounded to the basement of the building.

[StefanM]

Some of the items used by medics displayed at the Warsaw Rising Museum:

[StefanM]

A little further research revealed that the evacuated nurses and medical staff were transported to Stalag IV-B Zeithain in Germany.

From the Zeithain memorial grove website:



Women members of the Polish Home Army after their arrival at Zeithain, October 1944. From Archives of the Zeithain Memorial Grove.


After the Warsaw Uprising was finally suppressed on 2 October 1944, two rail transports with about 1,400 soldiers of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) arrived at Zeithain. They had surrendered having been assured that they would be treated as prisoners of war according to the provisions of international law. The prisoners were wounded and sick persons, medical personnel and other personnel from various Warsaw hospitals.

Twenty-five huts were made available in a part of the camp that had been cleared especially to accommodate these prisoners. The prisoners set up the 'Zeithain Polish Army Hospital' in these buildings. Within a short time, the 54 doctors and over 400 nurses succeeded in achieving a standard of hygiene that had never before been present in Zeithain. The large number of female prisoners of war also included pregnant women. Eleven Polish children were born in the camp. The deaths among the Polish prisoners of war in Zeithain occurred as a result of their wounds or other diseases they had contracted during the Warsaw Uprising.

The Polish prisoners were treated according to the provisions of international law until the camp was liberated. In contrast to the Italian and Soviet prisoners, they regularly received ration packages from the International Red Cross, which also conducted several inspections of the Polish hospital. Prisoners were allowed to send and receive mail, and officers and non-commissioned officers were exempted from labour.

The same can be said for over one thousand British prisoners of war who were held at Zeithain for three months each in 1943-44 and 1944-45. They were transferred to the camp not for health reasons but because quarters were not available at Stalag IV B in Mühlberg.

Little is known about the number of Yugoslavian prisoners of war or their living conditions in Zeithain. However, the deaths among them were also attributable to tuberculosis.

The bodies of the Polish and Serbian victims were exhumed and reburied after they had been located in 2004. The Neuburgsdorf/Bad Liebenwerda military cemetery is now the final resting place of these two groups of victims. The memorial commemorates the victims with nameplates at the former grave sites.

- - -

Additional information: In the period from 13 October 1944 until 23 April 1945, in the Polish hospital there were 1572 PoWs, including 1029 sick and wounded. The hospital consisted of nursing wards, an operating theatre, an X-ray unit and a laboratory. In August 1945 the hospital was repatriated.

[StefanM]

A group of young Polish scouts/paramedics in Warsaw :

[StefanM]

Fig.28: The operating room at Field Hospital (szpital polowy) No.1 (at ul. Wspólna 27).
Fig. 29: Transporting wounded on ul. Wspólna - September (wrzesień) 1944.

[kindzjal]

As I was impressed by the story and not far from Zeithain I thought that it would be nice to share a few pictures of how the place where the Stalag was looks now (week ago):

[kindzjal]

It took me a while, but there it is: