Stalag 369, built on a plot of land 6 kilometres south-west of Kraków, between Kobierzyn (currently the 8th district of Kraków) and Borek Fałęcki, was opened on 5 June 1942 to intern prisoners of war deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime for their ideas, their behaviour or their failed escape attempts; it was a detention camp with a severe disciplinary regime serving in a way as a psychiatric hospital. Nearly 17,000 people were imprisoned there, essentially French, Belgian and Dutch officers and non-commissioned officers who had refused to work for the Third Reich. The prisoners who died were buried in the parish cemetery of Borek Fałęcki, a few hundred metres east of the camp. After the war, their remains were exhumed and repatriated to their countries of origin. The local residents spontaneously sought to help the prisoners, providing them with food and care; some of them even helped prisoners to escape despite the risks incurred for themselves and their relatives. One of the organisers of the aid to the prisoners, Professor Jan Harasymowicz, was decorated with the Legion of Honour for these acts of resistance. Among the soldiers who stayed at the camp are notably the illustrator Jean Morin, who immortalised camp life in his drawings, and the writer Francis Ambrière (whose real name was Jean-Louis Letellier), who wrote an autobiographical novel Les Grandes Vacances, 1939-1945, published in 1946, in which he describes the life of the French prisoners of war at the camp, and awarded the Goncourt prize in 1940 (granted retroactively in 1946).
The monument in memory of these prisoners is located at Kraków, in a square of the 8th district, on Żywiecka Street, which since 2010 bears the name "Square of General de Gaulle", at the site of one of the camp's entrances. The monument was erected in 1966, inaugurated on 3 August at the initiative of Professor Jan Harasymowicz, and designed by the architect Wiktor Zin. It consists of a large granite stone on which are affixed the camp's emblem and an inscription in Polish in black letters which may be translated as: "STALAG 369 Site of the disciplinary prisoner-of-war camp of the Nazi occupation". On the back of the stone, one can read in French: "On this site was located camp 369 in which, between June 1942 and August 1944, were interned the escaped and recalcitrant French and Belgian non-commissioned officers who had continued the fight against Nazi Germany. Fourteen of them lost their lives there." The stone stands on a podium reached by 3 steps; on the left, on the wall of the podium, is affixed a plaque with the camp's emblem. On the low wall to their right are two bronze plaques with a text similar to that of the stone, in French on one and in Dutch on the other.
The upkeep of the site is regularly ensured by pupils of a secondary school in the town.