on 22 April 1945. Treatment of prisoners The camp was generally run according to the guidelines of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations, and was regularly inspected by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Russian POWs were excluded from this on the grounds that the USSR was not a signatory of the Geneva Convention, and suffered significantly poorer conditions as a result. Generally treatment of prisoners depended on nationality. The French, British and Americans were treated relatively well, while the Italians, and particularly the Russians, suffered from the consequences of maltreatment. In regards to Poles, the Germans violated the Geneva Conventions, by forcing them to relinquish their POW status to become civilian forced laborers. The Germans attempted to achieve this by deporting the Poles to more severe forced labour subcamps or threatening them with deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Polish prisoner Józef Dziurawiec recalled the poor conditions, including widespread starvation and diseases, including typhus, dysentery and pediculosis. Italian prisoner Michele Zotta later reported that for the first few days of his imprisonment he slept on the ground in a small tent. As to rations, on the first day he received one kilogram of rye bread to share with fifteen other prisoners, with some butter and jelly. From then on the daily routine was for the Germans to distribute a bucket of potatoes to be shared between twenty-five prisoners. Zotta also notes that when prisoners collapsed the Germans would beat them. However, there are also accounts that the Germans were low on food themselves. Regardless, Stalag III-A remains an example of poor conduct on the part of the Germans towards prisoners of war. Deaths It is estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners died while in the camp. During the winter of 1941/42 a typhus epidemic killed around 2,000-2,500 Russians, and mortality rates of Soviet prisoners was extremely high compared to the POW of other nations. Non-Soviet prisoners were buried with military honours in individual graves at the camp cemetery, while the Russian dead were buried anonymously in mass graves. Prisoners Stefan Mieczysław Grzybowski, professor and rector of the Jagiellonian University Phil Lamason, Royal New Zealand Air Force officer pilot Józef Warszawski, Polish priest, philosopher and Polish resistance member See also List of prisoner-of-war camps in Germany Roy Allen References External links Stalag III-A Prisoners of War World War II prisoner of war camps in Germany World