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The main camp VI A (Stalag VI A for short) was a main camp for prisoners of war in Hemer, Westphalia. It existed from 1939 to 1945 on the site that was subsequently occupied by the Blücher Barracks. It was one of the largest prisoner of war camps in the Third Reich and was considered a "death camp", especially for Soviet prisoners of war. The majority of the prisoners who did forced labour in the Ruhr mines were registered in Hemer. The camp was set up in the autumn of 1939 and liberated by the US Army on April 13, 1945.
By mid-1942, 30,000 prisoners of war were registered in Stalag VI A. By the summer of 1943, the number had risen to 55,000, and between December 1943 and liberation in April 1945, it was 100,000. In the first few months of late 1939, Polish prisoners were in the majority; in the autumn of 1940, their number was still around 2,600. The number of French prisoners at this time was comparatively high, at around 23,500. Britons were quickly transferred to other camps after being captured. From June 1941, Serbs were also housed in Hemer.In the first years of its existence, the majority of prisoners in Stalag VI A were French. They were transferred directly from the Western Front to Hemer, where the first thing they had to do was hand over their military equipment. The civilian population of Hemer reacted with hatred to the arrival of the first prisoners. Prisoner transports were spat on and pelted with stones by some Germans. Dark-skinned prisoners from the French colonies in Africa became an attraction for onlookers.Soviet prisoners of war had been imprisoned in Stalag VI A since September 1941. Special regulations applied to their treatment, which was justified by the fact that the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin had signed neither the Hague Conventions on Land Warfare nor the Geneva Conventions. From the Stalag they were mainly transferred to work command camps in the Ruhr mining industry. Contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, some of the prisoners were also used to work in the armaments industry.The quantity and quality of food was lower than for other nationalities, as Soviets were not supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were not given blankets and there were few medicines available.Despite the ban, most Soviet prisoners were well informed about the course of the war. Many saw this as motivation to resist attempts by the Germans to recruit them.The American soldiers found 22,000 prisoners, mainly Russians, of whom 9,000 were sick enough to require hospitalization. 200 bodies were found in the cellars, which had not been buried in the hectic last days of the war. Before liberation, about 100 prisoners per day had died of epidemics and malnutrition. In total, at least 23,470 prisoners of war perished in Stalag Hemer.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stammlager_VI_A
https://stalag-via-hemer.de/index.php/informations-und-gedenkstaette/
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