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We were moved to another camp further up the Adriatic — I’m sorry, the name escapes me. After a spell there, the rumour was that the Italians had conquered Sicily and they were on their way on the foot of Italy and were probably going to move in and we thought good-oh, but not to be. We were again put into cattle trucks and the next few days we realised we were in Austria through the Benner(?) Pass.

Sue: How many men were there in each of the trucks?

Ron: Probably about 40.

Sue: And, again, no food and no water presumably?

Ron: Yes, we were given in fact we thought how wonderful. Because when we crossed the Austrian border, the doors were opened for different reasons, we were given loads of brown/black bread, it’s brown but they call it black bread, the Germans. And we thought, this is all right, we’re not used to this! And I think some greenery, some fruit and vegetables, and we thought this isn’t bad. Anyway, we had no idea where we were going and we ended up in a place called Middleburg, which is near Leipzig. Again we were de-trained and we realised it was a huge camp with loads of Russian prisoners in. Very badly treated, some of them had lost their legs and they were on wheels, and they were still being kicked around by the Germans. We noticed that the Germans and the Russians obviously didn’t get on at all, they were treated like animals. But the Germans respected the Red Cross, with the British and we were treated a bit better.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sue Craig on behalf of Ron Redman and has been added to the site with his permission. Ron fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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