November 1939, it became the POW camp "Stalag IX-B", housing prisoners from at least eight countries: France, the Soviet Union, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia, Slovakia and the United States. The inmates were used as forced labourers in agriculture, forestry and in industry at Gelnhausen, Wächtersbach, Hanau, Offenbach and Frankfurt. There are no data on the number of dead. The first figures on the number of inmates date to September 1941, when the Wehrmacht notified the IRC of 18,483 POWs. After December 1941, Soviet prisoners were first mentioned. The number of prisoners peaked in September 1944 at 25,640 (12,537 French, 11 British, 704 Serbs and Slovaks, 8,448 Soviets and 3,941 Italians). At that point there was severe overcrowding. Inmates later said that around Christmas 1941 about 20 Soviets died each day from hunger and exhaustion. From 5 December 1941 to 22 January 1942, 356 Soviet prisoners died, before the authorities stopped issuing certificates of death. Soviet prisoners were not provided any shelter, given less and worse food than other prisoners, and forced to do hard labour such as quarrying. From early 1945, following the Battle of the Bulge, approximately 4,700 US infantrymen were held at Stalag IX-B. In January 1945, the commandant ordered all Jewish prisoners to step forward out of the daily line-up. The senior noncommissioned officer at the camp, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, ordered his men to disobey the order, and told the Germans: "We are all Jews here." For his actions, Edmonds was made Righteous Among the Nations, the first American soldier to be so honoured. After being kept standing for several hours 130 came forward. However, the commandant had been requested to provide 350 for the transport. Thus known "troublemakers" among the prisoners, including PFC J.C.F. "Hans" Kasten, the elected camp leader, were then selected, including anyone who "looked Jewish." On February 8 the group was taken by train to the Berga concentration camp. An estimated 1,430 Soviet prisoners died here by spring 1942. The dead were buried in mass graves and later moved to the current graveyard around a kilometer from the camp. Today, this site is a memorial to the Soviet dead. A sign lists the names of those 356 dead who are known by name. After the war some of the dead - most of those members of the western Allies' armed forces - were taken home or moved to other memorial sites.