THE LIGHTER SIDE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 276, 22 November 1943, Page 3

THE LIGHTER SIDE

PRISONERS OF WAR “HEIL HITLER”" AT A FIRE (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) Recd. 6 p.m. Cairo, Nov. 10. Though the consistent grimness of life in a German prison camp requires no emphasis and little imagination to conceive there were occasionally

lighter moments, according to some of the repatriated New Zealanders and, as their existence in captivity seemed to them, so are the stories of those lighter moments apparently endless. There was an occasion remembered by all when the enemy authorities circulated a long list of articles prohibted In prisoner’s parcels. Each Allied soldier was handed this list, which included such items as refrigerators, washing machines, sewing machines, and potatoes, and was instructed to dispatch it to his next-of-kin forthwith. It presumed that the next-of kin would take heed and resist the strong temptation to include a refrigerator in subsequent parcels. One New Zealander indicated to Stalag stooges that his next-of-kin was renowned for common sense, and washing machines and the like were probably rationed in the Dominion anyway. “You must send it to someone,” he was told, so he addressed it to “Winston Churchill” and earned himself three days’ detention in the Stalag penitentiary.

Another New Zealander said that shortly before being compelled to leave Germany he was assisting an Australian to wade through a huge dinner, the main course of which comprised three “off colour” potatoes. Mail had just been delivered and the day was glorified for the Anzacs by a quite personal letter to each. An Australian had a second letter which proved to be a statement from his ousiness manager, who jestingly added a footnote to his summary of accounts which read, “With a bank balance of £26,500 you must feel like Australia’s Lord Nuffield.” The Australian looked at the guards, the barbed wire, and the three potatoes, and was dumb. Then there is the story of the Marburg Fire Brigade. There is (or was) a building in this well-known camp which through the ages had acquired a false roof, fsr some months the refuge of five New Zealanders. These enterprising men had smuggled themselves in to be with their friends, whom they visited in the dark hours, at the same time collecting their Rea Cross parcels. Under the main floor of this building was a cellar, and one day a Palestinian prisoner “accidentally” </opped a match into it. By sheer coincidence the match settled in a barrel of napthalene and it was not long before huge clouds of dense black smoke were pouring from the building. “Feur,” screamed the guards, and telephoned the Marburg fire station. The brigade arrived in all its splendour, trucks and crew arrayed in lady-killing uniform, which included many swastikas. Sam Brown belts, and Iron Crosses. The wearers were well drilled. Dressing by the right they “heiled Hitler." Then while the "fire” improved on itself they turned about, marched to the other side of the vehicle, and “heiled Hitler” some more.

In the meantime the five New Zealanders who had taken sanctuary in the attic were feeling uncomfortable. They were not equipped with respirators against napthalene gas, so they had no alternative but to declare themselves to the astounded guards. It took the Marburg brigadesmen some time to organise, because while they were rolling out their canvas hose several senior officers appeared, each warranting further "hells” to Hitler. But it did not matter much, because the building had been "ablaze” for so long that there was no hope of “saving" it. In any ease, the brigade discovered that they had no

water. There was no hydrant in the camp. The real story lies in the fact that when the brigade had departed and everything had settled back to more or less normal, the small party of New Zealanders produced 200 feet of excellent hemp rope which had former a main part of the Marburg crew’s equ<ynent. It was latpr used for the construction of a boxing ring.