NAZI PRISON CAMPS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23014, 4 October 1944, Page 8

NAZI PRISON CAMPS

Soldiers’ Experiences Improvement In Treatment

Some interesting stories of their life in Germany as prisoners of war were told by New Zealand and Australian repatriated men who accompanied a party of New Zealand servicemen and women who recently arrived in the Dominion. Some of these men had been prisoners since the campaign in Greece in 1941, and others were captured at El Alamein in 1942. One Australian, from Melbourne, who was wounded and captured by the Germans while serving at First Australian Corps Headquarters at Kalamea, Greece, and had been in various camps before being repatriated from the camp at Annaburg, 35 kilometres from Berlin, in March last, spoke of the great 24-hour blitz of the RAF and U.S.A.A.F. on the German capital, in one phase of which more than 2000 planes were attacking with 80001 b bombs raining down. It obviously had left a tremendous impression on him, though he had no opportunity of seeing what damage was caused. , . x „ From the tram on his way to Marseilles for repatriation, he was able to see the immense damage which had been caused by Allied air raids on Leipzig and Stuttgart. “There was wreckage and debris all over the place,” he said. German Morale Not High “The morale of the German people is not too high,” he said. “What with not too much to eat or to wear, and the effect of the raids, they are not too happy. They know pretty well how things are really going, because many of them listen to the 8.8. C. news.” The same man spoke of the changing demeanour of the prison camp guards. “In the early days we were treated like dogs, though the medical attention all through has been good. Of late, however, the guards have been much kinder. They couldn’t understand how it was we went about singing happily when, as they saw it, we were losing everything and being beaten everywhere. They tried to break our spirit, but in the end we broke theirs. There were about 3000 Australians and New Zealanders in that camp.” One of the repatriated New Zealand men also said he found some of the guards very pliable. Wounded at El Alamein and taken prisoner, he was taken by Italian hospital ship to Caserta, where he was put in hospital, later being transferred to hospital at Bologna. His six months in hospital over, he was sent to Camp 57, near the Brenner Pass, .and had just been recommended for repatriation oy the International Examination Board when Italy collapsed and the Germans sent him to a camp at Goerlitz, Upper Silesia. He had some amusing experiences while there. He was put to work, first in a sugar beet factory with about 70 other New Zealanders and Australians, then in a stone quarry in a party of 40, and finally in a coal mine with 120 others. "The guards at the stone quarry would do anything for a few cigarettes, a packet of prunes, or a small packet of tea; in fact, for any small thing we could spare from our Red Cross parcels,” he said. “They would even lay down their rifles and break the stones for us.” Sightseeing Trip With his transfer from Italy to Germany his recommendation for repatriation was sidetracked or lost, but after a time he was reboarded and again recommended. When the time came for his transfer to Marseilles to join a German hospital ship for transfer to Barcelona and the Gripsholm, he had what he describes as a wonderful sightseeing trip. The normal route from Goerlitz to the French border lies westward, but the train carrying him set off southeastward through Lower Silesia and entered Czechoslovakia. Passing through Prague, a city which impressed him greatly, it then turned westward across southern Germany to Karlsruhe, whence it went south to Freiburg before crossing into France. In his opinion, the majority of the German people know they are beaten. “They know they’ve ‘had it,’ ” were the words he used. “Many of them said that the summer of 1944 would see the end.”