A thoughtful wee

WW-II British Prisoner of War Grouping

including a

Camp's German ID Tag and a Set of Rosary Beads

from 

Stalag XVIII-A in Wolfsberg, Austria

Originally constructed in 1939 to hold French Army POWs

 and designated 

Oflag XVIII

it was renamed Stalag XVIII-A in May 1941,

and was to become The Third Reich's largest

Prisoner of War Camp

for

Allied & Soviet Officer's & Men.

Functioning as a German POW camp throughout the whole of WW-II,

it was eventually liberated in May 1945 by the British 8th Army...

but not before tragedy had struck 5 months before,

 when bombers from the USAAF mistakenly 

targeted the Camp in December 1944,

destroying the British Medical Centre & Chapel

and killing 61 Prisoners.

At war's end in May 1945, all surviving prisoners returned to

their home countries and in 1946 the Camp became a 

detention Centre for Nazis under investigation by British Intelligence.

In 1947 the Camp's buildings were handed back to the Austrian Government,

to be turned into civilian accommodation...

and it wasn't until 1998 that the last of Stalag's XVIII-A's 

Prisoner Camp huts were demolished.

The British POW bringing back home his 

Rosary Beads & Stalag XVIII-A ID dog-tag in

a WW-II British Army Emergency Ration Tin

(produced by Bovril Ltd in August 1942) 

was, judging by the 4-digit number of 

2972

probably captured on Crete or in Greece in 1941.

A most evocative & highly personal 

British Prisoner of War grouping

that survived 4 years incarceration in Austria's

Stalag XVIII- A during World War Two.

(B.W Images Courtesy of The Tomahawk Films WW-II Archive)

Thanks for looking..!