German POW Camp Siersza Poland

Greetings: I am seeking leads to obtain information about an Auschwitz sub camp where I believe my German grandfather was assigned. His name was Wilhelm Dietrich and he was born in 1898. My father (who is still alive at 95) states that his father had been employed at a factory near Wuppertal which was destroyed by American bombing in 1943. From there Wilhelm was sent for "training" and was then deployed to Poland. My father says he was a "policeman". My father never saw his father again and has no idea what became of him after 1943. Given his age and occupation, I am assuming he was likely a prison guard somewhere in Poland.

Red Cross records show that a Wilhelm Dietrich was reported missing on 30 December 1945 in
Kgf.Lg.b.d.Grube Artur Siersza. My google searches seem to suggest that this place was a sub camp of Auschwiz which used prisoners as labourers in a coal mine, however, I can't find any more detailed information about this place. It appears that Siersza was a town of some sort which was later absorbed into Trezbinia Poland. I also have no idea what the abbreviations mean. All I know is that "Artur" was the name of one of the mine shafts in the area of Siersza.

Another Red Cross record shows a Wilhelm Dietrich born in 1898 who died in a Russian POW camp in Minsk on 5 March 1946.

Could I deduce from this information that Wilhem Dietrich was captured by the Red Army at the camp in Siersza and was then sent to a camp in Belarus where he subsequently died?

Any leads or explanation you can provide would be much appreciated. Thank you

 

Kgf.Lg.b.d.Grube Artur Siersza = Kriegsgefangenenlager bei der Grube Artur, Siersza =
Prisoner of war camp at the Artur mine, Siersza

There are numerous websites in Polish about the Artur mine in Siersza.

WaSt could possibly provide further information
https://www.bundesarchiv.de/das-bun...-auskuenfte-zum-ersten-und-zweiten-weltkrieg/

 

Kriegsgefangenenlager E565 related to Stalag VIIIB/344 , Arthurgrube, see link here

Mainly Brittish soldiers here a link


But as Itdan already mentioned not much to find, maybe you should try to get more documenten from him, maybe send a request to the Volksbund.
They maybe know the place / location where is burried.


Good luck in your research, hope you will find what you are looking for.

 

The online search at the Volksbund also only revealed the data that the DRK has.
As the grave location is unknown, I suspect that he is buried in one of the usual anonymous mass graves of the time.

For Minsk it was Camp 7168 with numerous subcamps:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00373R000200070012-9.pdf pg.7
Lager Nr. 168 des NKWD für deutsche Kriegsgefangene in Masyukovshchina – Geschichte der 260. Infanteriedivision.

The PoW cemetery in Masyukovshchina/Minsk was levelled in the 1960s. It is not unusual for human bones to be found during construction work. Unfortunately, until the late 1980s such finds were mostly disposed of.

As far as I know, this concerns the burial sites of roundabout 500k soldiers in the East, which no longer exist. Then there are the mass graves, which are barely accessible and often unmarked.
The VDK is completely overwhelmed by the task of searching for them and has had to restrict itself to transferring known surviving graves to military cemeteries
(I know of two alone near Volkhov and Demyansk, which I ‘rediscovered’ in 2001 with my grandfather, who fought there at the time. They had both long since been looted by grave robbers and were now just fields of bones)

Unfortunately, I can't contribute any more

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond with information regarding the camps. From the information available at the Volksbund web site, it is clear that a grave site will never likely be found.

 

There were numerous other subcamps, but I could only locate these two