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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MECIKAL 1942 SPRING or EARLY SUMMER
The camp at Mecikal was about eight km. from Brusy and I think we marched there from Brusy although the camp is in the woods beside the railway line to Konitz (Chojnice). I don't know why we had been transferred but it may have been that this job, building up the approaches to a rebuilt road bridge, was much more urgent than the Brusy sewage system. It was an alternative route to the main road to the east and north and had been heavily used before the attack on Russia. The camp was quite new and looked as if it had been built for the Arbeitsdienst or army, or German construction workers. It was in a fairly large sandy area with barbed wire fences and with several new huts. We found that our job was to load skips with sand, which we dug out of the new route of the road, and push them along rails towards the bridge. After a while, we came to an arrangement with the guards and the engineer in charge. When we had done twenty loads we went back to camp. The weather was warm and we enjoyed sun bathing, reading and football. Our pleasant life did not last for very long as the Germans, probably through an order from on high, changed the agreement and we had to fill more skips before we could return to camp. The civilian engineer in charge of the job was lodging in Brusy and came each day on a moped.

We had very little news from Bruss but we often thought of the people there and hoped that they had not come to any harm. Those who had any connection with the prisoners were liable to face severe punishment if caught. We had heard about concentration camps but our idea of them was places where people were half starved and sometimes beaten. The death camps were something that we had not heard about. Because I had been threatened with execution when I was captured I always felt insecure, and especially so during our last weeks in captivity.

It was a healthy life in Mecikal with the smell of the pine trees and our bodies tanned by the hot summer sun. This was the time when exposure to plenty of sunshine was thought to be good for you. I was not used to manual labour so I enjoyed using a shovel and my muscles were developing quite well, but we missed seeing people when we went out to work. The road had been diverted slightly because of the work on the bridge, so nobody came past and, as the camp was in the forest, the only excitement was a passing train. We amused ourselves by singing the old songs, often accompanied by a mouth organ, reading, kicking a football around and dreaming and talking of home. All the simple pleasures which we had taken for granted or undervalued in the past, and would do so again in the future, kept cropping up in our conversation. Going for a walk would be wonderful and going to the pub out of this world. You don't need to be a millionaire to enjoy life as I'm sure many a millionaire has told his employees. Any news which came through only confirmed the strength of the German position but there were rumours of British air attacks on Germany and, as these increased, there was some mention in the German press.
According to the press the British were only able to hit churches and hospitals.
As Autumn approached it became obvious that our work here would soon be finished and we could expect to be moved to another camp. The rumour mill went into overdrive with all sorts of fancy suggestions. We were going to work in a bakery for the winter. We might be exchanged for German prisoners in N. Africa. Eventually we were told to pack our few belongings and next day we marched to the railway halt and went to Konitz. Here we changed trains and travelled a few km. along the main line to Long.

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