大象传媒

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When the German occupation came to Belgium I was about 15 and living in Ghent. A sort of law came out that one person from each Belgian family had to go and work in Germany. I volunteered as i was the eldest son. I was asked by the camp commandante what I would like to do. I chose to drive a lorry and passed my test to drive a 3.5 ton lorry. After a while I was attached to the quartermaster and delivered cigarettes and biscuits to the German army. I went to some of the concentration camps without knowing what they were. We all had to have a mark on our arm identifying our blood group. When I had the chance to get home after 2 years, I set out in my lorry and picked up 2 German solidiers on the way who had had enough of the war. I said that if all went well we would run into the Americans. We did so just near Dresden while the allies were bombing the city. They directed us into a field to avoid the bombs, with other people and refugees. Everyone like me with a mark on their arm was separated. I was sent to Antwerp and then sailed to London Docks. We stopped for a night at Leicester and then I was sent to a POW camp at Nether Heage, Derby. I had no ID as I'd lost it when a piece of shrapnel fell on my jacket while it was on the passenger seat in the my lorry. I was classed as a German POW as many of the people with the same mark as me were SS Officers who worked in the concentration camps. They had to send to Belgium for my papers and eventually i was found to be Flemish and classed as a displaced person. I was sent to a barracks for displaced people at Shelton Lock near Derby. There were people there of all nationalities. I used to go to church in Belper and met Mary Starkey. Her family invited me to dinner and we became friends. We got married in 1948 and one of the soldiers in the Heage camp was my best man. When I was young in Belgium I was an alter boy, if it hadn't been for the war I probably would have been a missionary.

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