Opened by the Luftwaffe in 1942 near Sagan, in today's Żagań in Poland, this camp held captured Allied airmen, including thousands of Americans in its later compounds. Its sandy soil was chosen to defeat tunnelling, yet on the night of 24 March 1944 seventy-six prisoners escaped through the tunnel 'Harry'. Only three reached freedom and fifty were executed on Hitler's orders; in January 1945 the camp was marched west.
