大象传媒

Chapter 3

One day I was working outside and the Meister came up to me, took my arm and said 鈥淐ommst du mitt 鈥� come with me. He had another POW with him, Harry Mead. He took the two of us back towards the lager. A very old man was standing there, typical 1914-18. As we got to the old boy the Meister said, 鈥淎rbeit mitt鈥�, we were to work with him. So we marked out a big square and started digging a deep hole. That evening as the lads came in, they asked us what we were doing. We had no idea. When the hole was large enough the spoil was taken away and lorries dumped a load of chalk. We then ran a hosepipe from our lager and the water made the chalk bubble and steam. We found we had made a big lime pit. Then we worried what it was for. Some guessed maybe for the bodies of the dead Russians from the river.

By this time we managed to say good morning to the old boy. He did not start until 8 o鈥檆lock and he went about 4.30. It suited Harry and I, last out in the morning, first in at night to wash.

After a couple of days another German civilian arrived and he was the 鈥渂auwer meister鈥�. At last we found out we were going to build a house and the lime pit was for the foundations. We carried on digging with Franz, by now the old boy had told us his name. He had got used to us now. The meister zibert we had under our thumb from the first day. He liked a smoke so we soon bribed him. Later we had a very thin Czech lad about nineteen years old working with us. His name was Vlashik Lewiosky and he came in daily from Marie Ostrau. Today it is called Ostrava. (Many years later remembering that name helped me a lot.) Again, no guards, brown as berries, a bit of black market, everything was acceptable.

As the job progressed the bricklayers arrived and we became labourers. Because of this I managed to get Bluey working with us. The weather was grand at the time. The carpenters on the job were also Germans, working on the roof. So we were now doing a bit of bartering for the lads in the factory, and as labourers doing a bit for everyone, we found time to chat, talking to the Germans and them telling us how good the two fronts were going on. I used to say my usual 鈥渄er tag鈥�, then spin them stories of what the Ghurkas would do to the SS, so I became known by them as 鈥淲ilhelm the propaganda minister鈥�. It was lovely to listen to the Czech women in the fields singing at work. They sang 鈥淟a Paloma鈥� and other songs. The German soldiers marching in the forest sang the 鈥淗orst Wesel鈥� song. Also 鈥淢ein vater ware ein wanderman鈥�, 鈥淟illi Marlene鈥� and others. We learned to sing many of them.

Not far from where we were working building the house, there were some fruit trees and Bluey decided one day to get some of the apples. He picked quite a lot and while he was doing it a German came along and asked him what he was doing. Bluey tried to tell him that he had been picking the apples up off the ground. The trouble was he had great branches sticking out of the front of his jacket, so it was obvious he has been up the trees.

Come to the end of Autumn the house was practically finished. Bluey and I went back to Drausen Arbeit in the factory cutting the logs for the holtz wool machine.

Back now to the Artz doctor.

A few months before the house was finished Bluey received a kick in his leg playing football. This turned into a large ulcer, bigger than half a crown. It was very bad and showed no sign of getting well. Eventually we convinced him to visit the Artz. Really he was worried in case he was sent back to 8B unfit for work. If you ever saw a doctor dressed in a long whit coat, jackboots and pince-nez glasses, I am sure you would never forget him. He mixed up a white paste and it had to go on in a circle round the ulcer. Slowly it started to close. Some time later it cleared right up. Many a time since I have been home I have wished that I knew what that paste consisted of, talking to elderly people with ulcers. On top of that, Bluey played football again, received another kick and had to go through it once again.

If you had a bad toothache the doctor would pull the teeth out without cocaine or gas. I was caught outside the camp one day by a patrol and brought back, so to save the posterns getting into trouble we all had to pretend I was returning from the dentist in Odrau. I had lost a front tooth many years before. The excuse was that I had been to the dentist for a false tooth to fill the gap. To make it stick, I did go to the dentist many times. I had a tooth crowned in silver with a false tooth to fill the gap attached. It only broke off about 5 years ago and became a distinguishing feature that people always remembered about me. After all you don鈥檛 come across many people who show a silver tooth when they smile. It cost 50 marks and the sergeant of the guard paid for it for me.

I had an idea that very near to us Czech partisans were operating in the area. We picked up hints from our Czech workers. Sometimes they asked us for salt or pepper. After raiding German dorfs and stealing pigs and such like, the salt was needed to cure pork. The large saws cutting long trees into planks needed to be about 12 ft. long and had to be mounted according to the thickness of the planks. These saw blades needed to be changed very often. They had to be taken to the Schlafferi. The sharpening shop. They were taken on a horse and cart driven by an old German. His name was Byuss. Bluey and I always went with him to help carry the blades in and out. This night it was quite dark and as we walked in there were Czech workers making knives and bayonets out of the broken steel saws. We told Byuss to stay with the Pherd (horse) and we did the unloading and loading. Poor old Byuss shot himself as the war came to an end. Gradually now we learned more.

The Biggeri shop (that is the shop where wood was taken for steam treatment before bending), had members who knew where the RAF escape route was and there were contacts in the factory who we could trust.

In the lager we did have a crystal radio set. One chap spoke 2 or 3 languages very well but most of our news came from the locals.

Just before Christmas 1944 we saw Russian aircraft overhead and we were all made to go into the bunkers for safety. Again we said 鈥� 鈥淒er tag. Zweiter frunt jetz fahren schnel nacht Berlin鈥� Second front on its way to Berlin fast.

There seemed to be a slowing down in the Fabrick with not so many wagons arriving. More aircraft appeared overhead and an uncertainty of what was happening. The chef (boss) went to Prague knowing that east and west had begun closing in. Our fears were of the SS and what was happening in 8B with all of those POWs. The chef returned and the word went round that he had been away to place all his money into Swiss banks.

At that time I was waiting to go to Novyjicin to have my knee looked at. It meant being taken in a horse and cart and I considered trying to get back to the others? Some of the lads were talking of trying to get back to Stalag 8B but Bluey and I had other ideas, the Czech partisans. We now noticed that the guards were not the same and were very relaxed when we returned from working in the evening. They had always been at the lager to count us in, now they could not care less. Even evening appel and taking our boots and trousers was forgotten. In fact some of the lads often spent the night out with a Czech family. They showed up at work in the morning.

You must remember we were quite isolated in a tiny village. Some villages were known as Czech, others as Deutsch. Everyone was uneasy. Red Cross parcels were not so regular. Czechs were beginning to take days off, never known before. About the end of January or early February, on the spur of the moment, nothing planned, Bluey and I decided to weg 鈥� that means go. No one ever called it escape only weg. In the past years some of the POWs used to weg laufen (run away). When caught and brought before the Commandant at 8B it was said 鈥� He got fed up and ran away for a while鈥�. Some lads did this regularly and after a while gave themselves up, collected their mail and other things, spent 2 or 3 weeks in the bunker then looked out for another working party.

I have often puzzled why officers claimed officer status as soon as they were captured, if they wanted to escape. As ordinary soldiers you could get away without digging tunnels. I can tell you I never met any Bridge over the River Kwai officers. Getting away was easy but getting away from Poland or Czechoslovakia to a friendly country without skills was another thing. Remember they held all the aces.

Our decision to walk out of the lager was easy in one way but not in others. It took a lot of thought, collecting information, watching the situation on the Front and deciding which way to go. Could we get Resistance help on an escape route? We had to be careful about who to trust and to gain the trust of civilians? There were German Sudateland folk running the Resistance who actually were communists. I don鈥檛 want to mention names. Remember, to this day families still live there.

Remembering the Stalag days and the lessons of old POWs who had escaped and been recaptured I learnt all about where I was and knew the source of the River Oder and where it went north to sea. I also knew it was possible to get down to Vienna in Austria, heading towards the Swiss border. I knew that to head west was impossible without help from the Resistance and you needed 3 or 4 weeks to hide away as soon as you got free and so the timing had to be well thought out. I would not go as far as to say we planned it but we listened and waited and eventually balanced our chances. We had no idea we would end up on Yanosik Kries in Mala Fatra with the partisans.

One day in 1944 we just wandered off. We came to a village, I believe it was called Landskrone. Then we wandered to so many places that I can鈥檛 remember them all, dossing down in barns or fields, running into German cyclist patrols and trying to make out we were Russian POWs working on farms, acting dumb by answering Nero Zomice, Ni panimoi. Slowly we got further away from the lager and found ourselves in the Bedskids hills. From here things get a bit mixed up.

One day we were asleep in a barn and a German soldier on patrol looked in on us. He shouted and pointed his rifle and at the same time pulled back the bolt to load and all his bullets fell out onto the straw. He was very cross with himself but we saw the funny side of it. We helped him to look for them, joking and laughing, then he stormed off.

I believe it is now time to study the map. The River Oder, marked with a little X, Odrau is about 3 to 4 miles away by train. Stalag 8B is not far from the River Neisse. A village called Lambsdorf Brzeg or Brieg was the nearest railway station. Opole is a small town in Poland and a leading area for Polish partisans. It was also part of the route for any RAF escapees. More of that later.

Cesky Tecien was a place we stayed for a while. It was half Czech, half Polish. If possible we kept away from towns. So now we are near Odrau again. There we found out that we were not far from the RAF escape route. I never did find out how many got through.

After the war I enquired to an RAF escape committee at the Duke of York鈥檚 HQ, Chelsea who had no idea. They told me that only 2 families in Poland were in receipt of a pension for helping the RAF. The route from Odrau ran down to Gottwaldov south, I believe towards Budapest to the Danube. We did send out feelers with some of our contacts. We were told the escape route was very dangerous for everyone. British contacts had told them not to help British soldiers along because it was only for RAF and submarine officers. That is how much they were interested in ordinary POWs.

Watching Russian aircraft flying low and not dropping bombs we found out that we were near an area of the mountains called Janosik in Mala Fatra. The beginning of the Tatra mountains. It was the headquarters of the partisans and the Russians were dropping supplies to them 鈥� The Poles on one side, the Czechs on the other side. The whole area was known as the Janosik Kriese (Janosik circle) and is was very dangerous for the Germans to contain, which suited us. We got food from the partisans very often and saw how they waited by the mountain streams to trap wild deer coming for water, and put snares on poles just before dark, pulling down birds out of the trees. Sometimes we didn鈥檛 see them for ages. They told us when going to dorfs to scrounge or steal food, always to look for the first or second farm house, and to wait and see who was about to ascertain if it was a Czech or German house. They advised never to beg in the centre of the village, only on the outskirts so that it was easier to run back into the woods if it looked like trouble. I must say we got very good at that, even Bluey took a turn and at most times were successful. It was somewhere here that I took a pistol and rounds from a German.

Now the usual greeting in all villages, towns and shops was always 鈥淗eil Hitler鈥� so when we knocked on a door or shouted hello we always said 鈥淕ruz Gott鈥� (God be with you). If the door was opened by a woman, nine times out of ten it would be, we always told them that we were Kriegs Geffangeners, POWs, and asked for 鈥渆in stikel de brot鈥� (a piece of bread). Sometimes it was, wait a moment, a piece of bread or cake given and the door shut, so we would leave quickly because we knew the people inside were afraid to be seen helping us. Other times it was 鈥淗erein kommen鈥� (come in). Here we had to take a chance 鈥� Was a party member inside? Police? or a soldier? As we went inside, a quick look round to satisfy all was OK. We always asked the same question, 鈥淲here is your man?鈥� Knowing full well that he was likely to be at the front. On the answer we would look sympathetic and say, 鈥淵es, Russian front very hard鈥�, then we would tell whoever was there about ourselves, by now probably eating a piece of bread or soup. Sometimes there would be a deserter, maybe a son, about the place. If we could stay a couple of days sleeping in the barn that was great. The only trouble was rats would run over you in the night. We were offered glasses of slivervitch which we both hated but it was given as a toast so we had to drain it.

You may not believe this but once up in the mountains Bluey and I had a fight. I think it was over an overcoat that he had left behind somewhere. I went off alone but we ran into each other two days later so we teamed up again.

There was a time when we were so hungry we took the horses oats out of a stable, boiled them up and spat out the shells. I wouldn鈥檛 recommend it. One day I got hold of a chicken and we were starving. We boiled it in our can and when it was ready to eat Bluey said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want any, I don鈥檛 like chicken.鈥� This tale has amused our families and friends for years, but it is true.

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