大象传媒

Of Desert Dust and Auschwitz

This is the story of Terry Gorman, WW2 Infantry Soldier. In an extraordinary five years, Terry saw hand-to-hand combat in the Western Desert and was captured in the infamous Battle of Gazala, June 1942. He spent the rest of the War as a POW in Italy and then, shipped to Poland in a cattle truck, was one of the few Allies to witness Hitler鈥檚 Final Solution at first hand.

Preface

Life and Death

2 June 1942: The Battle of Gazala

It was time to die. The hand-to-hand fighting in the desert dust had been fierce and bloody, but with no ammunition and no food or water for days the situation was hopeless. I could sense Jerry closing in, had even seen him scurrying around in the distance. At any moment a hand grenade would pop into the trench and dispatch us.
Harry had been popping off with the Bren gun 鈥檛il the last. 鈥淚鈥檒l just empty the last magazine鈥�, were his last dry words. I passed it to him and felt a thud in my right boot鈥he sole was loose, the skin grazed and starting to ooze blood鈥 very near miss, and a good pair of boots ruined. I got down to puncture our last tin of pineapple chunks with my bayonet, the fruit was useless but we sipped the warm juice. I passed the tin up to Harry who had ceased firing. There was no response. I grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back into the tadpole. He was dead, the back of his head a bloody mess and its contents emptying slowly on to my shirt and on to the sand. As I cradled him in my arms a huge Jerry stood over me, rifle aimed at my head. 鈥淓nglisher Sweinhund!鈥� he shouted. I stared at him, straight in the eyes. Time to die. Suddenly, the fierce blue eyes seemed to soften and his aim relaxed. 鈥淩ous!鈥� He spoke calmly and jerked a thumb behind him, 鈥淩ous!鈥� I left poor Harry where he lay. 鈥淩ous鈥︹�� the German repeated, looking down at Harry and admiring the perfect hole he had put between his eyes. It was a word I was to become very familiar with.
鈥淵ou are now prisoners of the Third Reich鈥�, announced a German Officer to a bedraggled group of us. He made us empty our pockets and share out the cigarettes equally. We were then pointed to the coast and told to walk until we reached the Axis lines, there was to be no water and no transport.
I staggered along in a dream. We could not keep together as a group and I found myself alone. My tin helmet offered little protection against the blazing sun and the chinstrap seemed to cut into my skin. I was in a bad way.
Suddenly, above and in front of me I could see a huge cup and saucer brimming with freshly brewed tea. It was one of my Aunt Polly鈥檚 cups, and she made a great cuppa, if only I could reach it...
I must have collapsed on the path. I opened my eyes slowly. The huge unshaven face of a German soldier replaced Aunt Polly鈥檚 cup. He held me up with one arm and was trying to pour some foul black liquid into my mouth. 鈥淐afe鈥�, he intoned, 鈥渃afe.鈥� I spluttered and managed to get to my feet. Behind the soldier was an Afrika Corps Four-Track with two officers seated in the back. One of them spoke to me, in what sounded to me like perfect English. He asked me where I came from and told me that his mother had attended Liverpool University and knew Manchester well. 鈥淒o you eat tripe?鈥� he enquired. I had to admit I had more pressing problems on my mind. They had no water to spare but gave me a little more coffee and a tube of cheese and pointed me in the direction of Durna.
A little further along the track I came across three of our lads, resting in a tadpole. Like me, they were despondent, and I think ready to pack it in. We had no water and little protection against the sun. Durna was miles away. 鈥淕ood afternoon, Gentlemen!鈥� I turned around to be met by a bedraggled tankie, actually an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment by the name of Captain Lloyd Ledger. He had seen action at The Cauldron and had been attached to the Guards Armoured Division.
He got down into the tadpole with us. 鈥淩ight鈥�, he said, 鈥渋f we stay here we鈥檒l die. We鈥檝e got to get up and walk and try to flag down some transport. Now piss in to this.鈥� He had produced a dirty Tizer bottle from his pocket which had a small amount of liquid swimming around the bottom. I looked at him with amazement. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to get out of this鈥�, he continued, 鈥渨e鈥檒l need some fluid.鈥� I don鈥檛 know how we did it, but each of us in turn made our contribution until there must have been half a pint in the bottle. 鈥淔or God sake don鈥檛 drink the stuff!鈥� he urged, 鈥渞inse your mouth out and spit it back into the bottle.鈥� This we did a regular intervals as we resumed our trek.
That bottle of piss was the difference between life and death. Later, we ran in to transport; some Italian Fiat trucks bound for Durna. As we bumped along it dawned on me. I was now a POW: a prisoner of war.

Stalag VIIIB, Silesia: February 1944
The camp was tense. Men were starving and we knew that the goons were intercepting our Red Cross parcels and eating or smoking the contents: so much for the friggin鈥� Geneva Convention. I didn鈥檛 need a mirror to know that I was becoming a skeleton reduced by a diet of watery soup, black bread and ersatz coffee that tasted like piss. My mother, a cook at ICI in Manchester, could make a meal out of a cardboard box and I would often slide in to sleep dreaming of one of her dishes.
It was freezing outside and most of us huddled around the cast iron stove in the middle of the hut and talked about food. Suddenly the door burst open and a couple of squat goons tore in. 鈥淪chnell! Schnell!鈥� they shouted, and herded us, at bayonet point into a resentful line. More guards appeared and then two figures marched in, one an officer in field grey cloth and the other dressed in the unmistakable uniform of the SS. 鈥淪ilver, who is Silver?鈥� barked the officer. Silver was a South African who slept in the bunk above me; he had seen action in the Desert and had been captured near Tobruk. Now he was standing next to me in the line, and shuffled his left foot across the floor in a half hearted attempt to come to attention. 鈥淵iss鈥�, hissed Silver. He was trembling. SS man bounded over and stood in front of the South African. 鈥淵our name is not Silver!鈥� he screamed in German, 鈥淵our name is Silverstein! You are a Jew!鈥� In seconds he was gone, dragged by his epaulets out through the door, his boots scraping on the boards. We stood bolt still. There was a gap in our line like a missing tooth, and a strong smell of soap where SS man had stood. I looked at my feet and drew a deep breath through my nose, it reminded me of the priests at St Pats. Jimmy Davidson, a fellow Mancunion, moved first. 鈥淛esus Christ!鈥� he spat, walked over and pulled the door shut.

More to follow鈥�

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