大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Ford on the behalf of Mr. Kenneth Clark and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

In September 1943 the Germans took over the Italian POW Camp I was in near Modena and shipped us off to Germany. One morning I was standing on the parade ground talking to a South African. He was slim and olive-skinned with dark wavy hair, his legs were shapely. He played the young female leads in camp theatre productions. We had acted together in a performance of "Rookery Nook". I think half the camp were in love with him.
There was a loud explosion just outside the wire and two Germans came through the gate carrying something in a blanket. It was a small Italian boy who had gone into an unoccupied sentry box, picked up a hand grenade and blow off both his hands. The Germans took him to the medical centre where our doctor attended to him.
A few minutes later the boy's family and friends appeared at the camp gate. They implored the guard to let them in. He opened the gate and about a dozen of them swept past so quickly that he was unable to count them. My friend turned to me and said, "I'm getting out, Ken." He disappeared into his hut and reappeared five minutes later wearing a dress he had made out of a sheet for a camp production and a pair of sandals. He had a ribbon in his hair, a dab of lipstick and a buttock swing which would have graced Mae West. I saw him enter the rear door of the medical hut. What happened then I don't know. Were the family so distraught they didn't notice? Did he persaude them to say nothing!
The boy died from loss of blood; the grieving relatives left the medical hut sobbing inconsolably. I saw my friend in the centre of the group acting his heart out. "Che desastro ... la povera mamma!" The guard respectfully opened the gate and let them all out without counting. There was no point - he hadn't counted them in. I never heard of my friend again. Did he get back to our lines? did he hide up with an Italian family? Or was he betrayed and shot? He certainly never turned up in any of the German camps I was in.

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