MADE TO WORK IN SALT MINES

[simon2]

Good afternoon,

Could anyone tell me if they know of a P.O.W. camp in Russia that British POW's were held.According to my nan and her sister one of their uncles was captured and sent to work in salt mines in Russia.Exactly where unsure but definately in Russia.As his record goes again I'm not sure but he might have been in the Navy.I've tried getting hits with surname but too many possibilities I'll have to work through them.

Regads,

Simon.

[Terry Denham]

A British PoW camp was unlikely to have been in Russia as they were our allies (unless you are talking 1919).

I have a friend whose records show that his g/father was sent to work in salt mines but the camp and mine were in Germany.

[Guest]

Unless your relative was captured by the Bolsheviks, then it is a bit hard to see why he would have been in a POW camp in Russia.

Anyway, I am not sure that Russia is actually noted for its salt mines. Surely something of a myth.

[Terry_Reeves]

Armoured Car Squadrons of the RNAS served in Russia, under Lt Commander Oliver Locker Lampson, from June 1916 to February 1918.

British, French and American troops arrived in Murmansk on 23rd June 1918 as part of the Allied Intervention Force. British troops entered Baku on the Caspian Sea on 4th August the same year.

Terry Reeves

[Doug Johnson]

http://big.chez.tiscali.fr/prisonniers-de-...stecomplete.htm

The above site has a list of camps in Russia but probably containing German prisonners. The list of German camps probably contains all their camps including those outside of Germany itself except those in occupied belgium which are in a separate list.

Doug

[truthergw]

Good afternoon,

Could anyone tell me if they know of a P.O.W. camp in Russia that British POW's were held

Simon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There were, and may well still be, salt mines in Poland. WW2 prisoners worked in them. I wonder if this part of Poland was in Prussia or occupied by Prussians? It may be that this was confused with Russians.

[marina]

I have a friend whose records show that his g/father was sent to work in salt mines but the camp and mine were in Germany.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Where were the salt mines in Germany, Terry?

Marina

[simon2]

Thanks for replies,

I will confirm whether it was Russia or not as I have only just started researching this part of my family tree and certain aspects are quite vague and sometimes its difficult to remember things from many years ago.

It is quite possible it may have been Poland or even Germany or even Russia 1919 and if I can confirm the gentlemans name I may find the answer.

Like Marina,can you confirm Terry where the salt mines were in Germany?

Regards

Simon.

[healdav]

Well, there are mines (now just a museum) at Berchtesgaden, for a start.

[simon2]

Many thanks,

Simon.

[marina]

Thanks, Healday. Berchtesgaden - that's amazing. I'd never heard that before. One of my great uncles was sent to the mines in Germany but we have no idea where. I wonder about that sometimes.

Marina

[stevem]

Salt mining

The following gives the locations of a few of the salt where POW's worked:

Sarstedt - parent camp Hameln

Neuhof salt mine - parent camp Giessen

Grasleben salt mine - parent camp Hameln

Ehmen salt mine - parent camp Soltau

The men who worked in these mines came from the parent camp and were organised in work Kommandos. The POWs were hired out by the German government to private companies and were supervised by a detchment of soldiers from the parent camp and the foreman of the mine where they were employed.

POWs not only worked in salt mines, they were also sent to work in coal, silver and iron mines.

This information is taken from a Report on the Employment in Coal and Salt Mines of the British Prisoners of War in Germany, published in 1918, Miscellaneous No 23 (1918).

Desmond Morton gives some details of men who were forced to work in the mines in his book Silent Battle, Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany 1914 - 1919 (Lester Publishing Limited, 1992). He details some of the problems encountered in working in salt mines "prisoners discovered some of the nastier features of salt mining, particularly the boil-like sores which developed whenever fragments of salt lodged in the skin or entered wounds or open sores"

POWs in Russia

In May 1916 the Germans formed three “Work Battalions”, which were to titled Englander Kommando (EK) I, II and III. EKI was formed by approximately 1000 POWs from Doberitz POW camp and were transferred to Russia. Michael Moynihan records the experiences of one of the men from EKI, Able Seaman James Farrant in Russia in Black Bread and Barbed Wire (Leo Cooper, 1978). Farrant spent 18 months in Russia, he spent time working on the docks in Libau and in February 1917 he was sent to Reiskatte on the Russian Front. He was made to carry timber and work close to the front line. In June 1917 he was moved back to Libau and in December 1917 he was moved back to Germany. Other men also served in Windau.

Farrant's account mentions Young of the RND dying on 3 May 1917. A check of CWGC shows H G R Young, 298446, Stoker 1st Class, Colling wood Bn. as being buried in Nikolai Cemetery, Latvia. The following is the description:

Jelgava, better known as Mitau, was captured by German forces in the summer of 1915; and in 1919 it became part of the Republic of Latvia. The establishment of the Republic was followed by a successful struggle for national existence against Russian and unofficial German troops. To the right of the main path are the memorial and the graves of Latvian soldiers killed in the war of independence; to the left is the British plot, covering 299 square yards, and marked by a War Cross. Between the two plots is a memorial chapel with a belfry. The British plot contains 36 Commonwealth burials, 4 of which are unidentified. Most died as prisoners in 1917 on what is now Latvian territory. All the graves were brought in from other burial grounds after the Armistice; 17 came from Mitau Russian Cemetery, 4 from Moniak Farm Cemetery(near the prison camp at Latschen), 3 from Libau North Cemetery, 3 from Kliwenhof Chruchyard, and 9 from other places.

The men buried in Nikolai Cemetery come from a wide range of regiments and the Royal Navy.

[Doug Johnson]

http://www.zip.com.au/~lnbdds/ww1/Blueeyes/blueeyes7.htm

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special/mem...atures/pow.html

A couple of links to some minor items relating to prisoners and salt mines. The first is quite something to read just for the sake of it!

Doug

[marina]

Doug - Thanks for posting those - it was very interesting to read them, especially the one by the ex-prisoner who suffered so many years after it all. My great uncle, so family legend has it, didn't get brought home until 1920, and arrived 'wrapped in a bale of cotton'. Reading your post about the sores and boils caused by salt mining, I see that it's possible he really did.

The inspecting officer is a honey - a miracle he got in any inspecting what with opera and lunches and all that!

Marina

[healdav]

Berchtesgaden mine is now a museum. I haven't been in myself but I have had reports that it is very interesting. I do know that it is well signposted. I found it without trouble just after closing time!

[marina]

Marina

[Doug Johnson]

http://www.jacksdale.org.uk/pages/MemorProj/WW1F/bacon.htm

A story of a man who did not work in the salt mines!

Doug

[Doug Johnson]

FO383/160 contains reference to a camp at Courland, Latvia

Doug

[Doug Johnson]

Having now read FO383/157 there is reference to a report by a German Officer Hauptmann Draudt of the camps at Courland, Latvia: Libau, Wainoden, Angernsee, Mitau and Windau.

Doug

[Guest British Sapper]

I served in Berchtesgaden in the early 1970's, attached to the US Army at Strub Kaserne.

I believe that the salt mines were worked by WW1 POW's.

On the plus side, Berchtesgaden is amongst the most beautiful countryside in the World. The beer is excellent too !

It's no wonder that Hitler had this place as his 'hidey-out '!

[Guest Lordies]

I don't know about salt mines but our father was one of 500 POW prisoners sent sent to a German POW camp in Russia about thirty kilometres behind German front lines; they were being punished for sabotaging German troop supplies on the Latvian docks.

They had to work in snow and ice to keep the piles of a river bridge free of ice and also they had to chop down trees and cut them into six foot lengths to make cord roads.

It was a canvas camp; beds were about three feet apart and consisted of wire netting stretched over wooden poles. There was no bedding provided.The prisoners worked ten hours a day and were usually only fed one watery mess of a meal a day in the evening. They were starving and sold all their possessions, even underclothes, to get more food and they scrounged outside the living quarters of the German troops looking for holes in the snow which indicated warm scraps may have been thrown out.

Of the 500 prisoners, 45 died and 380 went to hospital with frostbite and general weakness. Those not hospitalised were sent back to Germany.

The hospital was in an old brewery with wooden floors and had beds made from wooden platforms. The prisoners were given blankets and just enough food to keep them alive.

After five months most prisoners at the hospital had regained a degree of strength and were transferred to a camp in Chemnitz in Saxony where they were sent out to work as labourers in an open cut coal mine and a large modern briquette factory..

[Guest]

According to my Grandfathers army record, he was taken prisoner at Passondaelle, Flanders, in August 1917, when he and his comrades were surrounded by German troops in a Forrest and captured. They were transported in cattle trucks to a prisoner of war prison camp on the Russian Front, where they were put to work in the salt mines.

 

I have been unable to locate where this mine was, and its name. Any ideas please?

Polly

[DavidOwen]

Polly

 

Welcome to the forum.

Have you checked for an ICRC POW record for him? https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/  It is not the easiest website to search but if you can give the experts his name / regiment details etc. then they will no doubt be willing to assist.

 

Good luck with your research

 

David

[Guest]

Thank you David, I’ve tried all those sites, but every search has come up with a blank. It’s as if he never existed. I don’t have a card number to access a prisoner list, but I would really like to know if anyone has found out anything about where the salt mines on the’Russian Front’ were located and the names of the POW camps on the Russian front, because I have it on record that’s where he was a prisoner. Where exactly was the Russian Front located in August 1917, as I know the line was fairly fluid during the war.

[Keith_history_buff]

I wonder whether any mention of work in the salt mines is recorded in the WO 161 series of documents? I do recall having read an eyewitness report about a working party of British POWs put to work in repairing the German front line on the Eastern Front.