These were among my grandfather's photographs. On the back of this first one was written, "POW camp. April '45 Camp 37g cage 4."
Grandpa is the second from left, front row.
He was captured (in Italy, I believe) by the British in 1944. He was kept as a POW (mostly in Egypt) until June of 1947, as were many thousands of other German POWs. I'm told that many of his colleagues at the camp died there or at other camps.
I don't know if these other photos were taken at about the same time or years later.
At some point, grandpa was judged to be gravely ill. That's when it was decided that he should be sent home. He was forty years old.
He lived another fifty-one years.
He was a tough old buzzard.
Don't know anything about these fountains.
Evidently, inside the tents, the floors were dug down several feet. That kept the interior cooler, but it often created a problem at night, when temperatures could dip near freezing.
I wish I knew what happened to all these men.
My father tells me that, when Opa came back from the camp, he was never himself again.
"Was that because of his experiences at the camp or during the war?" I asked.
Dad says he just doesn't know.
"Grandpa wouldn't talk about any of that."
In 1946 the UK had more than 400,000 German prisoners, many had been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada. Many of these were for over three years after the German surrender used as forced labour, as a form of "reparations". "The POWs referred to themselves as 'slave labour', with some justice." Their emotional state was worsened "from the anxiety and hope of the first half of 1946 to the depression and nihilism of 1948." A public debate ensued in the UK, where words such as "forced labour", "slaves", "slave labour" were increasingly used in the media and in the House of Commons. In 1947 the Ministry of agriculture argued against rapid repatriation of working German prisoners, since by then they made up 25 percent of the land workforce, and they wanted to use them also in 1948. (Wikipedia)
No comments:
Post a Comment