大象传媒

These stories were submitted to the People War鈥檚 site by Jane Van de Ban of CSV Media on behalf of Maurien Osborne and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My story has now been completley rewritten by me, Maurien Venables.

Having to leave Jersey for Germany.
I was born in Jersey, and at the start of the war, and the occupation, was a small child living there with my parents and younger brother.
My mother was born in Jersey, and my father was born in Wales, of Welsh parents.
My father as a young man, and seeking work, decided to leave Wales for Jersey, where his younger sister was living, and had suggested to him to do likewise, this he did.
He arrived in Jersey, soon found work, met my mother, they courted, married, and had two young children by the time the war started, and the occupation of the Channel Islands by the invading Germans.
I was around nine years old when my family
were given notice, by the Germans, for our deportation to Germany, the reason for this
notice being served on us, was becaus my father was English.
The Germans were interning all non Jersey
subjects, for interment to Camps, in Germany.
The orders were given, to be packed, and ready to leave, with one small suitcase each, and to have warm clothing with us. We were given the date for departure, with the time to be down at St. Helier harbour for embarkation, ready for sailing away, and the start of our journey to Germany, and into, the unknown.
The memory of saying goodbye to family, and friends, before boarding a cargo boats, will stay with me for ever, even now, after
sixty years, I find it very upsettting,
bringing tears to my eyes.
It was a very distressing time, as none of us had any idea what was going to happen to us, and would we ever, ever see each other again.
It was one of the most awful nights ever, sailing away from Jersey, our life that had been, and our homes.
The boat journey to France, was a most awful experience, the noise of the engins,
smell of sardines, and sea sickness, made it very difficult to sleep.
This smell of sardines on the boat, was caused through the sardine sandwiches we had been given for our evening meal,coupled with our feelings of fear, and anxiety,made it all so very unbearable, making it near impossible to even close our eyes.
After sailing through the night, we arrived in France, disembarking the ship, and stepping on the train at St. Malo, where we started our train journey to Germany.
We stopped for a short while at Verseille, then carried on to Paris, not going through, but on the outskirts, entering the Duchy of Luxembourg, reached our destination, the Biberach Camp.
This camp site, which we were to inhabit for the next few weeks, consisted of rows, and rows of wooden huts-barracks-nissan huts,surrounded by barbed wire.
We were together in tnis camp, but my father, with the other men, were separated from their families, and only had certain times of the day for visiting them in the Women's Barracks.Quite soon after our arrival at Biberach, we were photographed,these family photo's, which I have included with my story, are now over sixty years old, showing us then, I'm sure these were held in files at the camp, some form of identification, to who we were.
As I'm writing this, I wonder, did these files follow us on to Wurzach, and at the end of the war, when liberated, what became of them?
After a few weeks stay at Biberach,we were moved from there, by train, to a camp in another part of Germany---Wurzach.
The train journey to Wurzach, was so very different from the one we had taken from St. Malo, on this train we were locked in behind large doors, standing closely together.
Eventually, arriving at Wurzach, we alighted from the train, and with our German guards, started on a very long walk to the camp.
On arrival at the camp we were allocated
rooms, where we were to stay, our room was on the ground floor, no 17, which housed 25 people, or more, comprising only of women and their children, the men were put in one of the wing's, the camp was a German Schloss.
Life in the camp.
My father who was a chef, was given work as one of one of the camp's cooks,which he did for all of the time we were there.
People with other trades, and professions, like a doctor, would work as one of the camp's doctors.
We had our own people in authority, but all orders came to them from the German Camp Kommandant.
The camp was ringed by high barbed wire, which separated us from a Hitler Youth Camp on the other side of the wire.
We were closely guarded by the German soldiers, patrolling our camp, day and night.
We had some schooling, but not like we had been used to, the classrooms were situated in the castle's dungeons, stories were put around, by the children, to frighten each other, that these dungeons were haunted, by ghosts.
I will say, one day, as I entered the side door from outside, there, near the shower room,I saw a shape, a figure clad all in white, (no face) I immediately screamed and whatever it was, it disappeared.
We, as children, made our own friends, and created our own fun, doing things that we had not done before, life was so very different.
I found a great love for flowers, when picking them I knew I was out of the camp, having got through the barbed wire,to the other side.
We knew which guard to ask, the one who would allow us to do this, then turn a blind eye to what was going on, but we had to be very quick, and get back in, on our side, before he came around again.
There were other times for picking flowers,
on walks, with the German nurse taking mothers out with their babies.
I would go on these walks, taking a baby boy out in his pram, his mother, and brother lived in our room, she was very pleased for me to take her son out, as it gave her more time to look after her husband, who had become mentally ill.
We had our regular walks, which were arranged alphabetically, getting to our surname, Osborne, always seemed such a long way away, when you were only at the beginning of the alphabet.
On these walk, not only picking flowers, and collecting fir cones, we would also catch wonderfully coloured dragonflies, they were realy beautiful to look at, but sadly, i think we use to pin them onto paper, showing them off to our friends, competing to see who had the best.
Always, on these walks, the guards were there with their guns, walking in front, and behind us, making sure we didn't try to escape.
We were counted before leaving the camp, and again on our return.
We would also ask the guard patrolling, if we could climb through the barbed wire, was, when we wanted to collect frog's spawn, from the stream, that ran the other side of the wire.
The spawn would be kept in containers, outside on our window-sill, where we would watch it through it's cycle, until, eventually, grown into frogs, to be our pets.
What great times we had with our friends, in a washroom, racing our frogs.
Lots of screams, and shouting would take place during these races, as we urged our frogs on to win, calling out their names.
There would be great joy,and excitement in the camp, when the distribution of Red Cross
parcels took place.
The Red Cross, once notified of our existance, were wonderful, sending us parcels, brown cardboard boxes,(similar to a shoebox) containing all kind of goodies inside.
My father, as one of the camp's cooks, would go out to the village, with a guard, and get provisions, for the camp.
Sometimes, on these trips, he would be given, by someone in the village, something for his children, knowing they were there with him in the camp.
They, being kind to him, would give him, maybe, a piece of white bread, even a piece of gewing gum, to bring back to camp.
My mother wasn't very comfortable, when my father came back to camp with these things for us, she felt it wasn't very fair,to the other children, in our room.
Whatever we were allowed to have, we would be sent to the toilet, by my mother,lock ourselves in a cubical, sit on the lavatory, and consume, leaving only when we had finished, but, when chewing a piece of gum, when do you leave?
We were in Wurzach, for two years and nine months before our liberation, but before this came about, and a short time before the end of the war, one day something happened, a day, so unlike any other day, especially for our new arrivals to our camp.
These persons arriving on carts, were Jewish people, just a few of them, they looked so sad, their condition was dreadful, gaunt, very thin, and they seemed exhausted, on looking at them, we knew they needed help, requiring food immediatly.
Once they were settled in, we were able to go to them, taking our bowles of soup, so they would have some food, very quickly, to eat and help them.
Now, I dont remember where these people had come from, or how long they had been travelling, before reaching our camp, also the reason why they had been sent to Wurzach, at that time we would of had full knowledge about them.
What I do remember, was, how very grateful they were to us for the kindness we had shown them, which we were so very pleased that we were able to help them.
They stayed for the rest of the war at Wurzach, when, like us the camp was liberated and we were all free.
I know, as they told us, they were so happy to be in Wurzach, as their life was so much better with us at Wurzach, to what they had experienced before joining us there.
Liberation
We, inside the camp, knew that it would not be too long before things would happen, the whole feel of the place was very different. We had some idea as to what was going on outside the camp, that the war was comming to an end, and very soon we could be liberated, but the wait was unbearable, when would it happen? tomorrow, please let it happen today, please, as soon as possible.
The day that liberation came nearer, was a day full of activities, with getting the
dungeons prepared with all the necessary equipement, medical supplies, etc, every thing ready to help with our survival, incase things went drastically wrong, and we were to suffer casualties, we just had no idea what might be.
But somehow, on this day, things very quickly started to happen, one minute we
were inside the camp, and the next we were all running outside towards the wire and as near as possible to a gate, because, comming down the road, through the village, were our liberators, the French Army, and we wanted to greet them.
Before arriving at our camp, we were told by them, later, that they had no idea that this big building, the largest in this small village, was being used by the Germans
as a P.O.W camp, they just didn't know what was going on in there, so had all their guns
pointed on towards us, how very luckly we all are.
Once the camp's gates were opened, we were away, I was one of the first to get out, through a side gate, I'm thinking now, that all the gates were opened at the same time.
But what a glorious day, what wonderful feelings, the emotions of that day, that I can still feel as I'm writing this, will stay with me for ever.

Thank you for allowing me to tell my story, also, my heart felt thanks to Jean, manger at Camden Library, for the wonderful help she gave me, and her interest in my story.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.