One such camp, Stalag VIII D, was located in Maribor.
In September 1941, about 3,300 Soviet prisoners of war arrived in the city. After an inhuman transport in sealed freight cars, without food, water, or sanitation, they were driven onto the platform of the main railway station by German guards and railwaymen. Many were already exhausted to death during the journey. The bodies of the deceased remained in the wagons until their arrival in Maribor, a fact the Nazis also exploited for propaganda purposes.
The prisoners were housed in barracks at the foot of Meljski Hrib, where diseases such as typhus, dysentery, and scabies quickly broke out due to exhaustion, starvation, and inadequate hygienic conditions. In the harsh winter of 1941/42, the camp commander forced the prisoners into daily runs through the surrounding streets, which resulted in the deaths of 20 to 30 people per day. By the end of winter, about 2,800 Soviet prisoners of war had died and were buried in the Pobrežje Cemetery.
They were transported to the cemetery by British prisoners of war - without any piety, often only in their underwear or even naked. In the spring of 1942, approximately 500 survivors were transferred to forced labor in Kapfenberg, Austria.