大象传媒

We're talking about Albert Michalski, the name is obviously Polish, and in tracing recent family history as best we can, because obviously all his documents were lost when his home was bombed, in Dusseldorf, we think that the family migrated from Poland to Germany, possibly via America.
I know that either his father or his grandfather spent time in America, surveying and prospecting for coal, in the Pennsylvania coal field. He was apparently shot by Red Indians, and mother brought three boys back to Germany, hence he was born in probably what was the German part of Poland. By the time Albert was born his family had moved to Dusseldorf.

He was conscripted into the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine, and he was stationed at Boulogne, at the beginning of the war, and working on a fast gun boat or a Schnell Boat. The boat sailed into the Thames estuary, with the aim of sussing us out I suppose, or dropping a few torpedoes, or whatever they did I鈥檓 not sure, I鈥檓 not a military person. But the British spotted it, shot the boat out of the water, and there were only three survivors, and he was one of them.
He was the radio operator, he was picked up after seven hours in the water, in which he said he survived simply by going with the flow of the tide, and the only scar he had was a scar down his index finger. He was popped into hospital for three days and then promptly put on a boat for Canada, where apparently many of the German prisoners were sent, and he ended up working in Medicine Hat which I think is Alberta, as a lumberjack.

Somewhere along the line he managed to pick up a Collins Pocket Dictionary, a tiny little English-German Dictionary, and he said "For me the war was over, I had to survive, so I taught myself English". And in 1944, of course, the War in Europe was coming to an end, and the prisoners were transported back, and he mistakenly thought they were going to be released, and he said "We got to the Isle of Wight", and I'm quoting him, "The boat turned left for England", and he ended up at a large transit camp which many Shropshire people will remember, at Sheriffhales. Now from Sheriffhales they were sent to smaller camps, and Albert was placed in a very small camp, I think about seventy three prisoners, at Cluddley. I think they must have been a low security risk or trusted prisoners.

He was farmed out along with other prisoners to work locally with English people, and he was sent to Leaton Quarry. Now I think this would be around 1946, there was a large fire at Highley Colliery which was still operating in those days, near Bridgnorth, and the need then was for stone and sand from Hilton Quarry, stone from Leaton, sand from Hilton, near Bridgnorth, to douse the fire.

Now my father had just started a haulage business and he was an owner/driver, and he'd got a contract with Leaton Quarry, and the manager who was a Mr Brown, just said to him one day, "Would you like a prisoner to work with you, would it help you?", and of course my father jumped at it. And hence the connection came about, and my first memory is of father coming home for lunch one day and saying to my mother, "I鈥檝e got a German prisoner in the cab of the lorry, what shall I do? Can you make him a sandwich?", and my mother said, "He has to eat like you, bring him in". And I was three or four years old, at the time and this very, very tall dark man walked in, complete stranger, taller than anyone I鈥檇 ever seen, and we never looked back, it was a family friendship that was cemented on the spot. He spent nearly all his free time then with us as a family, used my grandmother鈥檚 sewing machine to alter a jacket, (obviously they had very few belongings, very few clothes).

He used to come down and help my father at home as well, and if he came I can remember my playmates would disappear because he was German. There was I suppose a lot of prejudice obviously, a lot of ill feeling still, following the war. But things I can remember was that he used to visit the wool shop in Wellington, where a Mrs Grey was German, and he used to be bring wool for my grandmother, who was a great knitter. It came to Christmas, he spent Christmas with us, and of course we had very few things to decorate the house at Christmas during wartime and immediately after the war, and he walked from Cluddley to our house, which was then at Bratton, carrying a branch which he had decorated (how he got hold of it, I have no idea), and he'd painted the cones with red and gold paint! On another occasion he turned up with a typical German toy which is shaped like a table tennis bat with a weight underneath and pecking hens, and years later he said to me, "Do you still have that?", and I said 鈥渘o, it's long since gone,鈥� he said, "What a pity, it was painted by a Meissen porcelain painter".

So the friendship continued till 1948 and of course in 1948 the prisoners were repatriated because England wanted to host the Olympic games in London, and of course the Olympics can't be hosted by a country that鈥檚 holding prisoners of war. At least that was the rule in those days. And so he went back and he came to see us and said, "Look I鈥檓 going home now", home had moved because he was bombed out, his family were been bombed out in Dusseldorf. Home had now become a region called Osfriesland which is a North West Germany between Enden and Wilhelmshafen, very flat extension of the North European plain from Holland seaside, the setting of the Erskine Childers novel 'The riddle of the sands', which was filmed with Michael York and Jenny Agutter, many years ago. And he said, "I鈥檓 going home to see my family," he said, "you are the only family I鈥檝e had for this time and things will be different", but he said "I don't know what I鈥檓 going back to, but I hope to see you all in eleven years time".

Well we didn't hear for a couple of years and then we got some photographs, and found he'd got married and got a little girl, and the little girl was born on my birthday, a little later on two little girls, and so the family developed and every year, every Christmas we got a little note to say how they were. His written English was not good but his spoken English was excellent. And still no sign of a visit. He'd got a job he worked for Tissen which many people in that part of Germany did, it鈥檚 a big ship yard in Enden and family life just went on.

The children grew up, we grew up, we all got married. and then it came to my parents Ruby Wedding, and we were talking at home one day and saying: what can we do for father and mother to give them a surprise for their Ruby Wedding? We were at the Flower Show and we met some friends whose son was doing A Level German and he knew of this German connection and he said 鈥渕y son will write the letter for you鈥� because we didn't know a word of German. So I wrote the letter, he translated it, wrote it, and I鈥檝e got the letter we got sent back, which said briefly:

"I鈥檝e booked my passage, I鈥檓 coming by car, will arrive in Shrewsbury鈥�., I was delighted to hear from you, I鈥檓 sorry my wife can't come, because she doesn't like traveling."

But that's the letter. It's dated 1980.

He arrived in our house in Shrewsbury at about half past one in the morning, the only mistake he made on the journey was that he went to the wrong house when he got to Shrewsbury, he went to our neighbour鈥檚 by mistake! But we picked up exactly from where we left off which was remarkable, it was unexpected, after all that time that things would just slot into place. It was very emotional and the next morning we had to go and buy flowers for my parents and I can remember the masses of beautiful red carnations and roses. Father and mother arrived in the afternoon, and my father just said, "There's a German car outside", he said "I wonder鈥�?", and of course they came in and they just couldn't believe it, we just left them alone, and we had a wonderful party at their house for the Ruby Wedding.

I think one of the significant memories we have as a family is that one of our friends, who was well known in Shropshire, was a police dog handler, Roy,who'd been in the long range desert group during the war, and of course he was with his wife at the party and we said 鈥淚 wonder what will happen when they meet?鈥� And they were introduced and one said: 鈥淚 was a prisoner here鈥� and the other one said: 鈥淚 was a guest of the Gestapo for six months!鈥� and they took themselves off with their beer into a corner and had a lovely talk it was really marvellous. He said: I鈥檇 like to come back and spend longer next year鈥� so he came the following year and then said to us 鈥渨hy don't you bring your parents?鈥� but sadly, my parents didn't want to travel, and so we went. We met his family, we couldn't speak a word of German, and his one daughter could speak English and his other daughter understood English, his one son-in-law understood but the other one not so much, and then his wife didn't speak English, and I thought 鈥済osh what are we going to do?鈥�. So we came back after the first visit and both of us, my husband John and I, took ourselves off to night school and we learnt German. That was the first step. And there began twenty years or more of to-ing and fro-ing of both families visiting, until he died, he was sixty eight when he died, which was not a great age. But for us it has opened up many doors and you look at life with a new perspective.

I taught history once upon a time, we didn't learn about the second world war it was too fresh, neither did we learn German, because German was not a language to be taught in those days. But for me to go to places in Germany that I had learnt about in European history, Breiman for instance, statue of Roland in the square, to go to some of their villages, and really realise for the first time that they suffered as much as we did, the ordinary Germans in villages and small towns. They have their war memorials, they have their remembrance services, they have their Christmas services just like we do.

I think probably I come from that immediate post-war generation where the barriers came down and other German friends have told me since that their barriers came down as well in that generation. The war was something, their immediate history, something they had to face up to and then it was banned. German history wasn't taught in schools immediately after the war, and as time has gone on things have changed. It's been a very enriching experience and we've got quite a few bits and pieces that remind us constantly.

Obviously there are the photographs, and little bits that we've picked up along the way, I鈥檝e got one the envelopes from one the early letters, 1958, that he sent ten years afterwards. On our most recent trip which was this summer, we were going through some family papers and of course just as some people emigrated from this country, from Ireland, during the year of revolution in Europe 1848, the potato famine and so on, people emigrated from Europe as well. And a lot of German people from North Germany, along with the Scandinavians went to the wheat growing areas and to the coal fields, and in America. We managed to go in one branch of Albert鈥檚 family back as far as 1874 and there are definitely Polish connections but the rest of the documents are just not available, because they were lost in the bombing. It brings home to you that it does rob people of their heritage in a way, and war does things like this.

One of the things I brought back was a photocopy of his discharge from the Kriegsmarine, he had to give his thumb print and he had to sign to say that he was not a member of the prescribed organisations in Germany. It鈥檚 not a good photocopy but it says "Within thirty days of the date of the discharge as shown on this form, D2, you must provide yourself with a civilian suit or take your uniform to the Berger Meister to be dyed, you are exempt from prosecution under ordinance thirteen for the period up and including鈥�", and then it gives dates and so on.

We've got the stamp of the discharge officer, who was something Bevington, 'SSM Discharge Officer', so that鈥檚 obviously the British Army, I would think. There's a medical certificate, no distinguishing marks, no disabilities, that he can work and his home address by this time was Norden. I've got a photo of him with the other prisoners with whom he was friendly, and those who couldn't go back or didn't want to go back, mostly because the iron curtain came down, have of course settled in this country. Who knows what else we might uncover?

I think the prisoners were put to work in various forms, some of them would have worked in quarries, some would work on the land. I don't know if they were ever sent into places like the sugar beet factory, but of course Alscott sugar beet factory was started before the war by Austrians and Czechs, and some of their descendents have lived in the area ever since. So I don't know the variety, my father would know, my father is now eighty nine, and didn't want to talk about this, I think he's feeling it's a little bit past him now, but he wanted me to tell the story on his behalf.

I know that as in any prisoner of war camp you would get people from all walks of life, and I know that there were people from all parts of Germany, some of those who came from what became known as behind the iron curtain of course didn't go back after the war. I have a feeling that one person in the camp may have committed suicide but I鈥檓 not sure about that, but I do remember Albert mentioning it. One of the things he did tell me, and this is nothing to do with what they actually did but conditions in the camp I think were acceptable to a point, but in the winter of 1947, they were very, very cold, their blankets stuck to them, they were frosted. I think if they had some skills they tried to use them and in Albert鈥檚 case he was always very good technically, and he was quite an ideas person. He made my mother a coffee table which we still have. We turned it upside down when we were cleaning it one day and we found all the German terms underneath that he'd followed, all the numbers were written out in German and so on. This is a nice memento of a very good friendship which has been given to me, and I think one day it may find it's way back to Germany for the family, which I think would be fitting, as I don't have any family, any children, it would be rather nice if they had this back in the family one day.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Genevieve Tudor of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire and CSV Action Desk on behalf of Pam Bradburn and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.