Memorial Oflag 53

Karo Belaisvių Stovykla »Oflager 53«

Since 1977 a memorial complex in Pagėgiai (German: Pogegen) in the Memel Territory (also known as the Klaipėda Region) and a granite commemorative plaque added in May 5, 2005 remember the approximately 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war of the Officers' Camp (Oflag) 53, which existed in this place most likely between summer of 1941 and 1944.

History

The small town of Pagėgiai (German: Pogegen) is located in a part of the former province East Prussia, which was occupied by Lithuania in 1923 and returned to the German Reich in 1939 and which was part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic from the time of the invasion by the Red Army in 1944/45 until Lithuania's independence in 1990/91. Because of its proximity to the border this easternmost part of the German Reich was deployment zone for the Wehrmacht's attacks on Poland and the Soviet Union in autumn 1939 and in summer 1941. At the same time prisoner of war camps like the one in Šilutė in the Memel Territory were set up. Another one was the Officers' Camp (Oflag) 53, set up in 15 acres of woodlands near Pagėgiai. Little is known about this camp. Lithuanian and Russian papers speak of a concentration camp, some English-speaking websites even of a death camp. There is even talk of a satellite camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Initially political opponents of National Socialism and Jews are said to have been placed there. According to German sources 7,151 numbers of soldiers' identification tags are verifiable for 1941/42. Estimates maintain a number of about 10,000 prisoners, maybe up to 24,000. Oflag 53 partly served as a transition camp for the further transport to the western parts of the Reich. Some of the prisoners were deployed to conduct forced labour in the vicinity. So-called political commissars and Jewish soldiers of the Red Army are said to have been purposefully murdered. The camp very likely existed until the advance of the front in summer 1944, even though most of these so-called Russian camps on the territory of the Reich had already been dissolved or transferred by middle of 1942.

Pagėgiai, 1930s, View of town, public domain

Pagėgiai, 2010, Signpost, Stiftung Denkmal

Victims

Up to 24,000 soldiers of the Red Army are said to have been imprisoned in the Oflag 53 near Pagėgiai between 1941 and 1944, perhaps also political opponents of National Socialism and Jews. The death toll is not known, it is said that at least several hundred »political commissars« and Jewish soldiers of the Red Army were shot.

After World War One Lithuania gained independence from the Russian Empire. In June 1940 it was occupied by the Red Army as the result of a German-Soviet agreement – the so-called Hitler-Stalin (or Molotov-Ribbentrop) Pact. Many Catholic Lithuanians blamed the Jews as a whole for the loss of sovereignty and for the Soviet terror. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht soon gained control of Lithuania. Just two days later German units carried out the first mass shooting of Jews during this campaign in the border region of Garsden. In the first days of the war Lithuanian nationalists killed hundreds of Jews. Subsequently, the German-Lithuanian mobile killing unit »Rollkommando Hamann« launched daily attacks on Lithuanian towns and villages. By the end of 1941 they had shot almost all of the Jews living in the countryside and in small towns. Lithuanian SS units and police battalions were also involved in killing operations, particularly in Belarus. By summer 1944, between 140,000 and 150,000 Lithuanian Jews had been murdered – almost 99 percent of the Jewish population of the country in the interwar period. There were also around 70,000 Jewish victims from Vilnius and its surroundings, which had again become part of Lithuania following the destruction of Poland in autumn 1939. After 1941, these acts of terror were also directed against mainly communist critics and other minorities. In addition, this period saw the start of deportations of forced labourers into the Third Reich. A total of around 170,000 non-Jewish Lithuanian civilians died in the process. After the Red Army had regained Lithuania in 1944, the country once again became part of the Soviet Union. Thousands of Lithuanians emigrated, whilst thousands more engaged in partisan combat against the Soviet occupation until the late 1950s (these partisans were also known as »Forest Brothers«). The Soviet secret service NKWD deported a total of around 500,000 Lithuanians to the Soviet Union. During the Soviet period, official memory in Lithuania focused above all on the heroes of the »Great Patriotic War« and on pro-Soviet Lithuanian patriots, but the murdered »peace-loving Soviet citizens and communists« were also commemorated. In 1958, a museum was opened at the former IX. Fort in Kaunas, one of the most significant mass murder sites in the country. An ensemble of monumental concrete memorials was erected on the site in 1984. In 1990-91, Lithuania fought for independence from Moscow. The associated struggle with Soviet troops cost 14 lives. Many monuments from the Soviet period were subsequently dismantled and the decades of occupation and resistance became the main feature of national memory. The Soviet annexation of Lithuania in 1940-41 and between 1944 and 1990 was placed on an equal footing with the German occupation. As in Latvia and Estonia, occupation museums were established with a focus on the years of Soviet terror. A broad discussion of Lithuanian involvement in the Holocaust did not emerge until the 1990s. In 1998, an international committee was founded to investigate crimes during the National Socialist and Soviet occupation regimes. In the decades since then, Lithuania’s memorial landscape has become much more diverse. One of the most important institutions is the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum. At the former mass shooting site Paneriai on the outskirts of Vilnius a new museum building is being planned to complement the number of memorials and monuments already there. Already since 2014, there is a new permanet exhibition in Fort IX in Kaunas, while the internet project »Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania« is providing in-depth information on the mass shooting sites all over the country.

Remembrance

In 1964 research was carried out on site of the former Oflag 53 near Pagėgiai and a great number of human remains were discovered. A memorial (»Memorialkomplex«) opened in 1977 which had been designed by Gediminas Baravykas (1940–1995), incorporating a sculpture by Steponas Šarapovas (1936–1981). In the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the end of war – celebrated as »Victory Day« by those Russians who remained in independent Lithuania – the Lithuanian government allocated 87,000 Litai (just under 30,000 Euros) for the renewal of the memorial site. Modelled on a design by the artist Stasys Krasauskas (1929–1977) a black granite plaque was created which is dedicated to the »eternal memory to the victims of Fascism 1941-1945« in Lithuanian, Russian and English. It replaced the memorial plaque from Soviet times. On May 8, 2005 the then Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Brazauskas (1932–2010) and the consul general of the Russian Federation in Klaipėda (German: Memel), Michael Torschin, dedicated the new plaque together. An orthodox priest consecrated the memorial and prayed for the dead prisoners of war. On every 8th and 9th of May there are meetings of Russian and Lithuanian veterans of the Red Army.

Pagėgiai, 2010, Granite plaque from 2005, Stiftung Denkmal

Pagėgiai, 2010, Memorial stones from the Soviet era, Stiftung Denkmal

Open

The memorial is accessible at all times.

Contact

http://www.silaine.lt/2008/2008-04-08/Oflager-07.htm

Pagėgiai, 2010, View of memorial complex, Stiftung Denkmal

Pagėgiai, 1978, Memorial plaque from Soviet times which has since then been removed, Nechama Drober

Pagėgiai, 2010, Memorial stones, Stiftung Denkmal

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