Not the Image but Reality: British POW Experiences In Italian and German Camps by Peter Liddle & Ian Whitehead

	Capture and initial captivity.
	Life in the camps.
	This page: work and discipline.

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From the papers of C E Symons. He was captured in Crete and worked at a quarry in northern Czechoslavakia

Their German captors often required from POWs work outside of the camps. Ernest Hall was assigned to the railway sidings at Zittau, where he unloaded the railway trucks. Witte did similar work. He recalls how he took the opportunity to sabotage the German war effort as best he could:

We soon found out how to put produce destined for Halle in the wagon going to Magdeburg, and so on. But had we realised at the time the immense dangers we were running in making fools out of the Germans, we would never have played such foolish pranks. The penalty for tampering with the system, sabotage in effect, meant the concentration camp of which we were in ignorance at the time. Today, knowing the full horrors of such places makes me shudder when I think of the risks I ran in subsequent months.

The British found themselves working alongside not only POWs from other Allied nations, but also civilian slave labour from regions of Soviet Russia and from Poland. It was prisoners from these countries, regarded as Untermenschen in Nazi ideology, who were targeted for the harshest treatment. Russian prisoners were especially badly dealt with. At Jacobstahl, Witte witnessed Russian POWs being "systematically worked and starved to death". Sell writes that they were transferred to the camps in cramped railway carriages and many died along the way. On arrival, they had dogs set on them to round them out of the trains. The Germans fed the Russians poorly on scraps, such as potato peelings. The British did their best to relieve the suffering of their Allies. When he worked in the kitchens, Sell endeavoured to peel the potatoes thickly, so that the Germans got smaller spuds and the Russians thicker peelings. At Englesdorf, in 1943, Witte writes that:

with Red Cross parcels, the British POWs lived well .... As we had no need for German soup, we gave it to the Russians. Because they were starving, they fought over it like wild animals; the dish got knocked over and the soup spilt, so we made them line up and dished each man out with a proper portion. The Germans looked on cynically, but they knew in their heart of hearts that we were doing the right thing. The Russians regarded us with great favour but the Gestapo and the SS put a stop to the soup issue. There was nothing we could do except look after the Russians clandestinely.

Certainly, without Red Cross parcels, life in German hands would have been barely supportable. The German-provided swill of potato and gristle-meat stew was patently inadequate. With the contents of parcels not always matching the needs or desires of the recipients, bartering was the answer; most regularly over the cigarettes received by the nonsmoker. John Killick remembers the exchange and barter at his camp being quite sophisticated. It was:

based on a currency called bully Marks. You fixed a price for a tin of bully beef at X hundred bully Marks and anything else was priced in relative terms. There were no actual notes or anything like that. It was barter, but everything had its value. A bar of chocolate, whatever it might be. You could trade your bully Marks for cups of tea or whatever ... some people towards Christmas of 1944 were enterprising enough to take the prunes and the raisins and what not out of the Red Cross parcels and they unscrewed the light shades from the ceiling which were glass bulbs and brewed up this stuff under their beds and eventually managed to distil it into a clear white spirit which took the roof off your mouth but there it was. Very enterprising of them I felt.

Work on farms, in factories and in coal mines, something required of 'men in the ranks', could be physically very demanding of prisoners weakened by poor diet and food shortage but it could also be welcomed as bringing a measure of freedom and for some an orientation exercise if escape were to be attempted and even opportunity for escape. Geoff Steer described such circumstances which ended tragically, early in 1945:

Meanwhile we carried on working at the pit. I was put on another job of work, this time with Karl, shot-firing. After about a month I was on my own blowing coal faces for my mates and making it easy for them to get their stint of coal out. During one Sunday in February two American lads got in one of the coal wagons which always went away before we went back to camp. They had about an hour before the guards knew they had gone. We arrived back at camp about 6 o'clock, had our pig swill and some of our parcels. At about 10 o'clock the Captain came across to announce with a smile that the lads had been shot in a marshalling yard while trying to escape. My thoughts were at the time that these people had a lot to answer for and our time would come.

Steer recalled an American shot in their barracks for an insulting remark to a guard and the strictest discipline in the mines where he worked.

There is much evidence of gratuitous violence and humiliation being inflicted by the Germans. Stan Hope, mentioned above as a victim at capture, experienced German brutality again during a ship and rail transfer from a camp in East Prussia to Stalag Luft IV:

They took us by train to the nearest station to the camp. We found out afterwards we were about 3 or 4 kilometres from the camp which was in a wooded area. There was a road, a sort of sandy track up to the camp and they started us off marching with all our kit of course. We had all the stuff that we could carry and in the woods at each side, the officer in charge of the march had stationed young Marines. He had got them from the docks at Stettin or wherever and told them horror stories about our bombing civilians in Germany. In fact, we heard afterwards that his family had been lost in a bombing raid which was the reason for this hatred and he started us running up the road. We lost our kit. We were set on by Alsatian dogs. We were stabbed in the back with bayonets. We were threatened with guns. The horrible thing that happened was that we concertinered. The ones at the front would slow down. The ones at the back would push in to them and then we would all get crowded together and the young Marines jumped in then and stabbed us.

One or two did get quite severely stabbed. I got a prod in the backside and it healed up very quickly. It was nothing much but several people did get injured and several of them were handcuffed together and when one of them went down he dragged the other one with him and the dogs used to set about them then and I believe one or two of the fellows tried to kick the dogs but whether that worked or not. . [I don't know].

It was horrible. I have never been so frightened in all my life. I remember that my mouth was so dry. I could hardly swallow. We just didn't know what was happening and eventually we did arrive at the camp and they managed to get some doctors to attend to the wounded. We were all exhausted and laid on the ground. We had lost our kit. Some had managed to keep their kit but very few and we never saw that kit again. It was all confiscated.

For men at the end of their tether the last dregs of their physical capacity would be still further drained by the long marches to be endured from numerous camps as, from East and West in 1945, the Allies advanced into Germany. Some simply fell by the wayside exhausted and bereft of all spirit for survival. If not dragged up and on by fellow marchers they could have been dispatched by guards or have slipped into oblivion in the cold. There were further tragedies as low-flying Allied fighters strafed what one presumes the pilots saw as a column of retreating troops.

In the Centre, there is a graphic diary of a march from Poland into Germany, that of Herbert Cumming:

18/1/45
For some time now there have been strong rumours, particularly from the Poles working on the mines, that we will be moved shortly. The Russian advance has been very steady and the Germans have been digging defensive positions round the camp area for some time. We are still waiting for our Xmas parcels to arrive from the Reynard Mines.

Later
We have just been told to pack everything and be ready to move at an hour's notice. There is great bustle and excitement and we are cooking and eating all we won't be able to carry. I have just come from the Staffroom where I spooned a tin of condensed milk on my own and regretfully had to decline a tin of jam which they offered me. We are due to get a parcel among three men when we leave the camp. We are expecting to leave early in the morning.

19/1/45
We are all ready to move and our packs are heavy with all we can carry and more. I have a Canadian Parcel intact and beans and stuff for making porridge which ought to last some time. Gordon Maasdorp and Jack Richter have asked me to join up with them and share everything on the trip and this will probably suit us all. We have been told that we will have to march for from five to eight days and we are not looking forward to it. New kit is being thrown out to the chaps and there is terrible waste of everything which should have been issued earlier on.

Later
We have arrived at the Millowitz Coal Mine - 15 Kilos off - after a terrible march in the snow. Tons of things were thrown away by chaps who found them too heavy. Jack has been feeling very sick and had a terrible time, but we are in bungalows here and he is in bed and we are preparing a very good supper. I am insisting on planning our rations to last as long as possible as I am very dubious of Gerry being able to feed us regularly. We were left waiting in the snow for 4½ hours while they decided where to put us and it was bitterly cold. Eight chaps hid away at Nikwa, and two guards were left behind to look for them and we hear they were shot, but we don't believe them.

23/1/45
Human endurance is a thing at which to marvel. What we have gone through in the last 24 hours we would never have dreamed possible before. After a terrible night, during which a chap was sleeping right on top of me, we were woken up at 1.30 a.m. and told to pack and be ready to march immediately. We were told to discard anything but food and essentials, so we decided to do away with our sleigh as the ground was very rough. We were then marched at a terrific pace, past thousands of Russian prisoners and kept going for hours without a rest. When we were finally given a ten minute rest, we were absolutely exhausted and the 3 of us decided we must throw away anything we could possibly do without, so we each discarded our second blanket and all clothing except what we were wearing - except socks. We were pressed on again as the Russians were so close - in fact their gunfire seemed very close. When we finally arrived at a farm barn that evening we had covered 43 kilos. Tons of the chaps fell out of the road and we passed quite a few corpses of Russians who couldn't keep up with the main body. During the march we were wet with perspiration and yet our hands were numb with cold. Just before reaching the farm we crossed the river Oder, close to Ratibor.

27/1/45
We have been sleeping in barns every night, usually marching about 30 kilos a day. Our boots always freeze overnight and my feet are beginning to give a lot of trouble, as they are all swollen and sore. This morning I cut my boots in order to ease them, but I am afraid I'm in for a lot of trouble with them. We passed through Benthem, Gleiwitz and Leobschutz. We were told we could get rations tomorrow, but they are simply forcing us on with broken promises. At every stop more chaps remain behind. This morning I sneaked off early and got into the kitchen, with our Gerry leaders, and cooked up some porridge and even pinched some of their milk to add to it. Jack and Gordon were amazed and say they don't know how I manage these things. I also managed to scrounge some bread which helped things on. I don't know what we would have done without our Red X parcels which we brought with us.

Got 2 kilos of bread for some tea at Gratz and also very meagre rations, so we can keep from starving a bit longer. Has been snowing consistently and bitterly cold but today is a nice day. Last night 12 chaps were sent to Hospital by transport with frost bite and pneumonia and they were refused admittance and forced to march back to our quarters, as there was no room for them. I am terrified of getting sick, as the Gerry organisation is completely disrupted and you can depend on getting no help whatsoever. The only thing that keeps us going is the good war news and the thought of all we can look forward to when we get out of all this. I have been getting rheumatism in my left shoulder and it has been very painful. At some of the barns the farmers cook up a few spuds for us and we usually get hot water for a brew, so this augments our miserable rations a little. The chaps are beginning to get desperate and rush madly for any morsel of food - it is a pitiable sight. We are all losing condition rapidly and look unshaven and haggard. Washing is out of the question, as we usually get to our sleeping quarters after dark, and the guards won't let us out again. Odd chaps are escaping but they are pretty sure of being recaptured or die of exposure as the civvies are too afraid of the consequences to give any assistance.

They marched for six more weeks, right across Czechoslovakia, approximately 650 miles from start to finish until the unexpected sight of Red Cross lorries and parcels eased their suffering and heralded liberation.

Harry Sell's outrage at German brutality and misconduct is manifest in his account, with one particular incident making a lasting impression: "I have a private score to settle with one Gfr. Rebun for blowing out the brains of a Gurhka Officer in Brunswick just for the fun of it". Sell's record of life in the camp provided vital evidence in securing the conviction of Oberst von Strehle, the Commandant at Brunswick, for ill-treatment of prisoners. Another man, J. Barber, took direct action in the face of SS brutality on the farm where he was sent to work alongside other POWs and civilian slave labour. He struck a guard who had been beating Polish children on the farm. Barber only narrowly escaped execution because the army, which had a record of bad feeling towards the SS and the Gestapo, ran the court martial that dealt with him. After the War, the Polish ambassador praised Barber for his brave stand.

In total, Harry Sell presents his POW experiences as a picture of "organised maltreatment" in the hands of his German and Italian captors. However subjective his evidence may be, it is thoughtprovoking. The maltreatment of British prisoners in the Far East, established without doubt, is more widely known, but there is evidence enough of brutality under Axis hands. Often this seems to have resulted from disorganisation and inefficiency, but on some occasions there was wilful neglect and some savagery. It is equally clear that in the worst circumstances the British seem to have been treated less badly than other nationalities - particularly with regards to treatment by the SS and the Gestapo. Of course the notorious exception to this lies in the aftermath of the 'Great Escape'.

It is clear that some men suffered deep long-term scars, both physical and psychological, as a result of their experiences in the German and Italian camps. However, the legacy was not all negative. Quite apart from educational, cultural and professional advance through study, there was time to think and plan, time for self-analysis. Some men emerged with an unusually acquired independence. They had grown in self-awareness and self-confidence, more tolerant too, with a well-balanced sense of priorities. Thus, alongside the experiences of ill-treatment we should also remember that some men look back with less resentment of their POW days. Ernest Hall, for example, has a generally positive recollection of his captors and his years in detention:

Our guards weren't too bad - a couple of them were really likeable and I've often thought of them and hoped that they got home safely at the end .... I shall never forget my experiences as a POW - but my memories are by no means wholly negative ones. I sometimes think that it was in that prison camp in Italy and in the railway sidings and in the streets of Zittau that I finally grew up. I have nothing to forgive. Nor, I think, do either the Italians or the Germans have anything for which to forgive me.

In this article we have chosen not to deal with escape activity as a studied response to the overemphasis on this in book and film and as we review what we have written we feel we ourselves may have under-emphasised one central problem faced by every long-term prisoner with his loss of freedom and his subjection to a range of hardships - coping with boredom. There is a poem in a POW autograph album which expresses the problem with appropriate monotony. It seems fitting that the verses might be quoted as our conclusion:

Bloody Bridge all bloody day
Learning how to bloody play
Mr. Blackwood's bloody way
Bloody, bloody, bloody.

Bloody girfriend drops me flat
Like a dog on bloody mat
Gets a Yank like bloody that
Bloody, bloody, bloody.

Now I've reached the bloody end
Nearly round the bloody bend
That's the general bloody trend
Bloody, bloody, bloody.

Article by Peter Liddle & Ian Whitehead

	Capture and initial captivity.
	Life in the camps.
	This page: work and discipline.