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Tuesday,
May 15 1945.
It has been learned that the Norwegians are being taken to a
place called Schweibus and thence by cattle truck on the railway
to Murmansk, then home by sea. In the last few days the camp has settled down to a more or less ordered existence and most of us have reached a resigned state of expecting nothing. The only news is that lorries have been ordered from Sagan to take us West but the Russians give no indication of any date. All French POW have moved to the Hitler Youth camp, but judging by its state when we left it they will be very uncomfortable. British and American personnel have all vacated the prison camp itself and now occupy the former German quarters outside the wire; our total number is about 2250 and at least living conditions are thereby considerably improved. Our former barracks have now received a huge influx of civilian refugees who have invaded the Stalag; men, women and children of various nationalities are herded together in frightful squalor and sanitary arrangements have largely failed. With the weather approaching a heat wave there must be serious danger of an epidemic. Our little group is still in the workshop detached from everyone and very glad to be so; we are probably living as comfortably as anyone in the Stalag and this has contributed to maintaining our morale. We get a fair number of jobs to do in the shop and on Saturday morning there was a rush order for four coffins from the Hospital. Neither Ted nor Ray had ever done any undertaking work but they set to even calling on Johnny and me to lend a hand and on Sunday the contract was fulfilled; although a bit rough the coffins really looked quite respectable. About 40 German prisoners are employed in the Stalag for most of the dirty work such as digging out the sewage beds and they are well treated as regards food and lodging. I could not get any satisfaction in witnessing harsh treatment of Germans unless I knew that they had formerly been brutal to our own chaps. We have had a little trouble with Italians in the workshop, following the visit of an Italian officer a few days ago to request the use of the shop for the manufacture of crosses to be placed on the graves of Italians in the cemetery. Normally we would have refused to grant any favours to an Italian but for such a purpose we could not refuse and Ted gave permission for two such men to work in the shop; the discussion was carried out in French with some difficulty as the Italian Officer's command of the language was as poor as mine. More and more Italians have appeared in the shop to do a variety of jobs and yesterday we had a real row so that today there are only two Italians working here. Our diet these days is very starchy as it consists entirely of potatoes, bread and dried pea soup but at least there is plenty and after recent experiences we are not complaining. |
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