大象传媒

This story is taken from a manuscript by Lawrence Travers Dorins, and has been added to the site with his permission by Bruce Logan. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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After leaving Torun the train rumbled through the flat countryside and after about three or four hours we arrived at Brusy Station where we were met by a large bald headed man who appeared to be a local official. He shook hands with the guards and led us through the streets of the small town until we came to a fairly long building fronting the street and not far from the church. We went through a wide gate at the side and found ourselves in a sandy yard with a hall on one side with rooms above it and the walls of a house on the other side. At the end was a high barbed wire fence with a glimpse of a garden beyond. In the corner was a hut with a lavatory seat, about a foot from the ground, with six holes and a concrete tank beneath which was emptied at intervals by a local farmer and spread on the fields. The town had no sewage system and we were there to build one. The lavatories were intended for toddlers and we were in a convent and the nuns were still there. Before the war they had run a kindergarten and now the premises had been partly commandeered and they lived in half of the house fronting the street and above the hall, while the guards had the other side at the front and we lived in the hall.

The double doors were opened and we were ushered into our new home.
There were beds made of slats of rough wood nailed together, and so close together that one had to climb in and out from the front. They had sacks of straw for mattresses and were all round the room with folding tables and chairs in the middle. At the end of the room was a stage, about four feet high and ten feet deep, and near it was a large white tiled stove that burned peat. We had the rest of Saturday and Sunday to get used to our new surroundings and we received an unexpected surprise, a ration of lighter bread than the army bread that we had become used to and a piece of liver sausage which I had never tasted before. I liked it very much and hoped it might become part of our diet but it was a one off and it was years before I tasted it again.

On Monday morning Baldy came to collect us and we shuffled off in Dutch clogs and foot cloths. Two men, John Nattrass and Ben, were taken to a yard in town where they were to make pipes, about 50 cm. in diameter, by ramming sand, gravel and cement into moulds. The rest of us moved off along the main road carrying shovels, a bad sign. We soon left the road and went down a path past the cemetery and into the fields where there was a stream which needed deepening and widening. I began to wonder if this would be the end of the line for the sewage. Old ways would prevail and it would still end up on the fields. After a short time we abandoned the clogs and worked barefoot in the water and I began to wonder how we would cope in the winter. At about five we returned to camp.

In line with the Geneva Convention the Germans appointed a Man of Confidence to represent the prisoners in Stalag XXA which, including the work camps, amounted to 20,000 men. He was C.Q.M.S. Granger. In the work camps the senior N.C.O. took charge. Our camp had about 50 men and two corporals, one intelligent and quiet and the other brash and pushy. He was appointed and immediately chose one of his mates as cook, a useful post in a prison camp and the start of a clique.

It took a week or two to complete the job of clearing the stream and then we moved our operations to the lower end of the town, not far down the road from our camp. This scheme depended on gravity, so the pipes at the start were just below the road surface and as we advanced up the hill, the trench became ever deeper so we needed shuttering to prevent it collapsing. An elderly Polish carpenter named Jan was brought in and Frank Fuller, a former gypsum miner from our home unit was made his assistant. Later we used a three legged hoist and large bucket to bring up the soil and sometimes we used one or two platforms to raise it to the surface. The soil was very sandy which was not surprising in the Polish Corridor. The hoist was also used to lower the sewage pipes.

At the billet we were all slowly getting used to our new situation. We were glad to be away from the fort and in a small community, but life was hard and boring. While we were not starving, we were always hungry and, after work, apart from talking to each other, usually nostalgically about home, there was nothing to do. No books, no games and almost no fags. When we were at work we saw normal life around us. People walked past, children played, and girls smiled at us when the guard was not looking, but we were not really part of it. Things gradually began to improve with the passing of time as we became used to our different backgrounds and accents. Old soldiers had strange and improbable tales to tell of far away people and places, while others boasted of the fame of their counties and regiments. In the next: bed was a Scottish man who never tired of telling me of the hardships of life in Glasgow during the depression. One tale was about a smoker who turned to tea leaves when he could no longer afford tobacco and later went mad. My problem was embarrassment as I had to keep asking him to repeat his words as I could not understand him.

Slowly mail from home began to arrive. One old sweat received a booklet from his wife of sayings compiled by Patience Strong. One gem said, " If I had two loaves I would sell one and buy lilies, for they would feed my soul." His comment, expressed in very colourful language, was that in his present situation he could not imagine anyone having two whole loaves and Patience could stick her advice. One man received some really sloppy love stories from his wife and hardened old sweats were queuing up to read them. Just as in the army you needed someone for support and to share with, in a P.o W. camp you needed a "mucker" even more.

As we began to work through the town, we began to receive gifts and sometimes letters, pushed through a gap in a fence or dropped into the trench when the guard was not looking. At times we needed to go to the lavatory while we were at work, so the Germans ordered certain householders to make their outside lavatories available to us. In a mixed population it was always Polish houses which were chosen and they were the ones who would help us. Gifts of food and cigarettes were slipped to us and in the chemist's lavatory there was a shelf near the roof stocked with bacon sandwiches. The battle dress was ideal for smuggling our booty back to camp. These gifts were good for our morale. The Polish population was sympathetic and wanted to help us.

Bruss was in an area which had been made part of Germany itself and was now called West Prussia. It had always been a mixed area and before 1918 it had been German and many of the older Polish men had served in the German army in the First World War. Some Polish and German families were related and some Poles had German names and some Germans had Polish names. Most people spoke both languages but Polish was now forbidden. I sometimes saw quite small children speaking Polish and change to German as the guard approached. German citizenship was being offered to many Poles and accepted by some but there was still a strong anti German feeling.

Near the trench where we were working was the school where the headmaster often wore his S.A. uniform as he drilled the children in the playground. As we were working he would often stop and glare at us. He obviously strongly supported the Party and hated us. We just carried on working. The local priest was also very unfriendly and our interpreter, Tony Leachman, heard him telling the guard that we were far too well treated when he saw the first delivery of Red Cross parcels arrive. He was an obvious supporter of the regime although the Poles said that his Polish predecessor had been shot by the Germans. The food parcels were very welcome as our diet was very basic and meagre. We had ersatz coffee in the morning and evening which was made of roasted barley or acorns and without milk or sugar.
A ration of rye bread with margarine, vegetable soup with a trace of meat and also containing either beans, potatoes, turnips, or swedes. On Sundays we received a small piece of cold sausage. In return for our work we were paid a small amount of camp money and at intervals our interpreter was taken by the guard to the shops with a list. I usually had an Amerikana, a sugary bun from Panski the baker.

During my teenage years I had attended an evangelical church and today might have been classed as a Born Again Christian. Latterly I had fallen from grace, smoking and drinking. Not excessively; you need money for that. It was suggested that we should have a Sunday service conducted by me and the chief guard said we could hold it in the small room at the end of the building. We sang hymns from memory and said prayers and had a reading from the Bible and I gave a short address. During the Lords Prayer I was surprised to hear it being said in German. One of the guards had joined us. He told me that he was an Evangelical Christian. It was a limited conversation due lack of a common language but he did say that Hitler believed in the New Testament but not in the Old. When the German Army chaplain called he asked to see me but our talk was brief as his English was limited. I was relieved to know that the German Army had chaplains. The services lasted for a few weeks but support tailed off and we decided to end them.

Moving from the spiritual to the physical, we were finding it difficult to keep clean. We washed in cold water with a tin hand basin and were only supplied with a matchbox sized bar of green gritty soap at infrequent intervals. It was not surprising that we were soon suffering from lice. It gave us something to do. Fleas are very difficult to catch but lice are easy and I soon became very good at it. One afternoon we were sent home early because of rain and I caught seventy. There were no chemical aids available and the civil population were also suffering and the Germans were worried because of the danger of typhus which, in the first war had brought fighting in the Balkans to a standstill.

They decided to send us on the train to the hospital in Konitz, twenty miles away, where our clothes and blankets were steamed and we were able to have a hot shower .Back at the billet a group of Polish women were brought in and they burned the straw in our straw sacks and replaced it, then scrubbed the place out with disinfectant. We were free of lice for a week or two when the hunt began again.

I acquired the name of Crackerjack as I used to sit up in bed and crack lice between my thumbs, covering them with the blood which the lice had extracted from me. As I write this I begin to itch. Our visits to Konitz were a treat in a humdrum existence. When we were there we only saw the roughly seventy yard route from the station to the hospital. Being a prisoner is a time when you are always wondering what is round the corner and hardly ever finding out. Roads that you never go down and doors that you never open. When we went back last year I saw for the first time the front of the farmhouse on the town square in Kamien where I had worked. My route from the camp had always been down a lane at the back. The hospital in Konitz had been partly taken over by the military and the officer in charge had reputedly taught himself some dentistry by pulling out P.oW.'s teeth without an anaesthetic. On one visit a group of us were coming down the stairs, perhaps a little noisily, when we met him. I could not understand the words very well but there was no mistaking the venom and contempt with which he verbally lashed our guard who had to stand at attention and take it. I felt very sorry for the guard, who had always treated us reasonably, to see him humiliated in front of us. Later we were delighted to see the following comic verse, obviously written by a soldier, on the latrine wall.
"Lieber Leute, hab bisschen Verstand, scheiss im Loch und nicht auf Rand.." Translated," Dear people, have a little understanding, shit in the hole and not on the edge."
The problems with lice did not end for some time and the Germans decided to give us an injection in the chest, presumably against typhus. It did not affect me but one or two people were unwell for a while and one man was quite ill. We became free from lice as the Red Cross parcels arrived more often which improved our diet and gave us a supply of decent soap. I was free of them until the long march in 1945 which lasted two and a half months.

One day I was sent with a guard to carry a small sack to the town of Czersk. This was a splendid outing as we took the train to Konitz and then changed to go as far again to get to Czersk, where we went to the barracks. When you are old it is a pleasure when folk say that you are looking young but the young usually hope that they appear more mature. The guard ordered a large bowl of army soup for me at the canteen and, as the women handed it to me she said to the guard, "Are the English so short of soldiers that they are using children?" I was outraged but I still enjoyed the buckshee soup.

We had a Jewish West End tailor in our camp who, in his time, had made suits for the King. Sometimes he was allowed to stay in camp and mend our clothes and one day he patched the seat of Jock's trousers. It was a large square patch and embroidered across it were the words, DZIEN DOBRY. As he bent to use his shovel, passing Poles read Good day, in their own forbidden language. It was lucky for us that one of our number had some basic skill as a hairdresser so we did not look too unkempt. Some of the local girls, especially some at the top of the secondary school who were studying English for the Arbitur, dropped cigarettes or other gifts into the trench as they passed. Sometimes they sent notes to individuals which was very dangerous. One lad had a present of a block of artificial honey which he concealed inside his shirt, only to find to his great discomfort that by the time he got back to camp it had completely melted.

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