Friends of Oflag 64 Inc

Help Our Vision to Create a WWII POW Museum Become a Reality

“Friends of Oflag 64 is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit which supports the Polish-American Foundation for the Commemoration of POW Camps in Szubin, Poland, through fundraising, collecting hundreds of artifacts and promoting the establishment of a Museum of POWs so that the history of the POW camp in Szubin and the courageous Polish citizens who assisted them will be preserved for generations to come. 

In June of 1943 the first of almost 1500 US Army ground force officers entered the camp in Szubin to begin a two-year incarceration as prisOflag 64 Main Gate 1941oners of the German Third Reich. “Oflag” is the abbreviation of “Offizierslager”, the German word for prison camp for officers.

“Life in Germany’s only prison camp for American ground combat officers in WW II was a traumatic experience for everyone. Yet, 50 years later it holds a strange fascination.”  So said Frank Diggs, former POW in Oflag 64 on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary Reunion in 1993 in Louisville, KY. 

These patriots maintained their dignity, shared their skills and formed a working community to include educational classes, theatrical performances, and sporting events, all the time secretly digging an underground tunnel to freedom and keeping in contact with the outside world via the “Bird”, their clandestine radio.  

Help support our endeavor and make our vision a reality by keeping history alive so as not to be repeated.

Help us raise $5,000 toward the installation of our museum's inaugural exhibit.  Cash donations helped us to restore the POWs’ Tin Store, the building in which the POWs stored their life-saving Red Cross food tins. The building that once saved them from starvation, now saves their remarkable history.

Prototype of Exhibit

Renovated Tin Store