"Hell camp" hidden in the forest - the materiality of Stalag VIII B (344) Lamsdorf

The history of imprisonment in Lamsdorf (in Polish: Lambinowice) is long and complicated - prisoner-of-war (POW) and resettlement camps were operating near the village from the times of the Franco-Prussian War, through the Great War, the interwar period, 1939-1945 to 1945-1946. During the First and Second World Wars a number of British Empire soldiers, among others, were held behind the barbed wire in Lamsdorf. Today, the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War is an institution that researches, protects and manages the post-camp landscape as well as the history, heritage and memory of people detained there in the past. In this article we present (i) the activities of the Museum in the context of the history and heritage of British POWs held in Stalag VIII B (344) Lamsdorf during the Second World War, and (ii) the results of non-invasive archaeological work carried out in 2022 in the area of the former camps.