Hitler's British Slaves (29 page)

7

Danger, Disease, Decay and Death

‘Scenes of wanton and unnecessarily brutal treatment, sheer neglect and dying.’
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‘They are now positively suffering from hunger. They are also in such a weakened condition that they cannot throw off any illness and cannot finish their work thoroughly or undertake short marches.’
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In the aftermath of the initial period of deprivation endured by the prisoners most saw a recovery in health and living conditions that buoyed their spirits. As the Red Cross food and clothing parcels gradually helped them be restored to health and pride, life for the prisoners underwent a phenomenal change. No longer starving and dressed like tramps they could once more walk past their guards with their heads held high. Feeling more like soldiers than slaves they prepared themselves for a life of industry.

Yet as time passed, this life became increasingly uncomfortable. When a senior surgeon from the US Public Health Service visited 22 camps in 1941 he found them satisfactory with regard to food, sanitation, health and clothing. Working prisoners were receiving up to 60 per cent more food than the camp rations and there was no malnutrition. Barracks had adequate heat, light, sanitation, ventilation and drainage. It was a situation that would not last and by 1945 many of the prisoners were desperately struggling to survive. As one Red Cross inspector predicted in 1943, if the situation did not improve the prisoners would soon be completely and utterly
exhausted. As food shortages and worsening living conditions reduced the prisoners to mere shadows of their former selves, they had every reason to fear an ominous future, as one prisoner later explained: ‘Freud reckoned everything we do is motivated by sex. Not true – when women and food are not available there is still fear!’
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Although in the early war years such fears were far from the minds of most working prisoners the situation was not the same everywhere. In some work camps conditions had remained below standard right from the start of the war, with the Red Cross reporting: ‘very unsatisfactory conditions in Stalag XVIIIa and in practically all its labour detachments’.
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Many stayed clad in rags and shuffling along in clogs throughout the war and false teeth remained in short supply, as did razor blades, glasses, toothbrushes and toothpaste.

As the war continued even those who had known tolerable conditions in the early years found their situation worsening. In 1941 the men of Bau und Arbeitsbattaillon (BUA) No 20 had found themselves living in a German fort. Each member of the three work companies was given a weekly beer ration of one and a half bottles, and each man had a new battledress and boots. Ironically, in light of what would follow, their main complaints were about the poor quality of the carrots in their rations. In another camp the prisoners were even able to keep pets, with turkeys, ducks and goats all being smuggled into the camp. One prisoner even bought a horse from a local civilian but found himself unable to smuggle it past the camp guards.

Gradually conditions for BUA20 began to deteriorate. In May 1942 they moved to south-east Germany and their shifts were increased to 10 hours a day. By the end of the year they reported that medical supplies were running short and they
were forced to rely on what could be supplied via the Red Cross. These shortages were exacerbated by the knowledge that some Stalags had an excess of doctors whilst few work camps had trained medical personnel and were instead left to rely on whatever assistance they were offered by the Germans. In some cases men on work detachments even had to purchase their medicines from their guards. If sick prisoners were refused a chance to return to the camps for treatment they had to keep working. For some this meant continuing to work even with open sores on their faces – something the guards could not have missed.

Soon the shortages began to bite. Boils began appearing on the bodies of men whose diets lacked many of the vitamins, fresh fruit and vegetables would have given them. By early 1943 the clothing situation was starting to deteriorate. Although most still had one uniform for work and one for ‘best’ many pairs of trousers were beginning to wear out. In March that year they were merged with another work unit to form a camp of 1,200 men. With the drug shortages deepening the prisoners were hit by a serious outbreak of diarrhoea. The long hours of work and the lack of fresh food meant the numbers of men unfit for work also increased.

It was the lack of food that took the greatest toll on health. When potatoes were issued they were found to be poor quality. All tinned foods from Red Cross parcels were opened by the guards ensuring they had to be used immediately and could not be stored for later use. Meat in meals was often found to be as much as 40 per cent bone and the tea substitute issued by their guards was so bad most men simply discarded it. The shortages were only aggravated by the empty shelves of the camp canteen, where the prisoners had once been able to spend their weekly wages. By June 1944 they found even potatoes were off the menu, having been replaced by inedible
millet and dried vegetables, usually turnip or cabbage, with little or no taste.

This gradual decline in living conditions was replicated throughout the system of Arbeitskommandos, until by 1945 many were facing the twin threats of disease and starvation. At one work detachment from Stalag XXa prisoners reported receiving meat in their meals just once every three weeks. As the food supplies got worse and the labour got heavier more men suffered. It was little wonder some work detachments had as many as 10 per cent of prisoners in hospitals at any time.

The prisoners grew to rely upon food from outside sources since the supply of Red Cross parcels was often erratic. Whilst some prisoners found parcels arrived on a regular basis others rarely saw them. At one work detachment no parcels arrived between November 1941 and March 1942, and men arriving at Fallingbostel after the capitulation of Italy had to wait for three months before parcels were issued. Others found parcels were often missing soap and chocolate, two commodities that were highly prized on the black market – something both guards and prisoners were keenly aware of. Some guards were even spotted wearing Red Cross issue shirts. At one camp the guards made searches of prisoners and allowed them to keep up to 50 cigarettes, two bars of soap and half a pound of chocolate – anything else was confiscated.

Yet despite the shortages of food some prisoners used their meagre supplies for other purposes. At Rennes in France, a group of Indian prisoners pooled their supplies of butter and cooking oil in order to cremate a fellow prisoner. As a Sikh he was obliged, under the rules of his religion, to be cremated and have his ashes scattered, but the guards refused to supply the fuel. Unable to convince the Germans of the man’s religious obligations they improvised and collected enough oil to
ensure the success of the cremation. They were then forced to request replacement supplies via the Red Cross. It was ironic, since the Germans were cremating millions against their will in camps throughout the Reich.

Though the harsh and deteriorating conditions of labour made life uncomfortable for the prisoners, little struck fear into their hearts more than the knowledge that they were at the mercy of their guards. The actions of many, both military and civilian, left them in little doubt their lives were constantly under threat. Many of the prisoners took chances, mocked their guards, laughed at them and refused their orders – up to a point. Until the moment was reached when continued defiance could mean but one thing – death.

They had every right to be frightened. One group of prisoners had watched as their guard killed a fellow worker – a Russian POW – with an axe. Others even saw Russian prisoners being buried alive. In the face of such violence most prisoners believed their guards could easily turn on them, despite these real fears many continued to defy their guards, attempting to get away with as little work as possible. Some were successful, their defiance meaning they were transferred away from a working party back to the Stalag. In turn some were labelled troublemakers and forbidden to go out on working parties, a sentence that saved them the physical burden of work but which condemned them to the stupefying tedium of Stalag life. The punishment for others was imprisonment. Some sentences were light – seldom more than 28 days in solitary confinement – but others were a physical and mental burden for the men. Such was the level of disobedience in some camps that offenders were keep waiting before being sent to serve sentences in the ‘Bunker’. With all punishment facilities full they simply had to wait their turn.

For others the situation was more serious. One POW
received a sentence of 19 months for talking to civilians, another was sentenced to two years for refusing to work, and a third was sentenced to 30 months for disobedience. For sabotage in the workplace sentences of up to eight years were passed. Conditions for men sent to prison were far worse than those endured in the Stalags. Few had access to outdoor exercise and most were held in solitary confinement. One prisoner recorded losing 2 stone in five months, having existed on a diet of bread and water for three days and with normal rations handed out just every fourth day.

They could, however, consider themselves lucky. Between January 1941 and July 1943 the Germans admitted to shooting 68 British prisoners, many of them on labour detachments. Their crimes were many and varied – some serious such as attacking guards or organising strikes, others less serious such as failing to salute German NCOs. Not all the shootings were the responsibility of Wehrmacht guards. In some work camps, in particular in the mines, the guards kept away once their charges were at work. In their place came armed overseers among the civilian staff. Although technically a breach of the Geneva Convention, which stated only soldiers could guard prisoners, many armed civilians were placed in charge of working gangs. Many among these were accused of overstepping the mark with regard to discipline. Some among the prisoners took risks with both their guards and overseers. When they considered a task too dangerous – such as working in gas-filled areas of mines – they simply refused. Sometimes they were lucky, and were able to appeal to the better nature of their guards – sometimes they were not.

The entire war was marked by the killing of working prisoners. In 1942 William Evans and John Flynn were shot at Stalag XVIIIa for refusing to work. The following year saw
three men shot and killed for refusing to work on railway detachment, Bauhof II. A Private Miller on detachment from Stalag XXb was shot and killed for smoking at work and a Private Russel was shot for arguing. In early 1943 two Palestinian prisoners, on detachment from Stalag VIIIb, were even shot and killed whilst working below ground in a coal mine and a Private Kallender was killed whilst waiting for the pit cage. The same fate befell an Australian, Private Devlin, who was murdered at the Gruba Gotha mine. Another POW miner, George Strachan, was killed for arguing with a guard after arriving late for roll call. When he arrived smoking a cigarette the guard knocked it from his mouth. Strachan reacted by hitting the German, who then retaliated by lunging at him with his bayonet. The guard then called for Feldwebel Rolle who executed Strachan in cold blood.

At Auschwitz Lance Corporal Reynolds was shot and killed for refusing to climb an icy steel pylon without rubber boots and gloves, the guard who fired the shot later claimed Reynolds had been ‘running away’. Gunner Thomas Crook, from Stalag XXa, was shot for trying to organise a strike. Another working prisoner, Trooper Jack Brown, was shot by a guard for walking outside the factory whilst on an official break from his nightshift, his ‘crime’ was that prisoners were not allowed out at night. Such was the vicious nature of some of the guards that men were shot for the most ridiculous of reasons. One of the victims was a Fusilier Rigby. His crime? Whistling on the way to work. Another unfortunate victim, Private Harry Hudson, working at a farm, was shot in his own bed after he refused to get up for early morning milking. He was taken to hospital but died there, being refused treatment since the guards were convinced he was a Russian. Another man died in the arms of his brother after having been shot by a guard, described by prisoners as a ‘rabid aryan’, for
returning to the barrack hut rather than continue working in torrential rain, whilst at a copper mine two men were shot and killed for standing outside applauding an Allied air raid. In one particularly sad case Private Archibald Alexander was killed by a guard in May 1942. By September his unfortunate parents had still not received the news and continued to write to him enquiring why he no longer answered their letters.

A constant stream of names were sent back to London of those killed at work. Month by month the list grew – Driver Brown from New Zealand, Sergeant H. Robertson, John Marshall, Roy Jagger, Joe Gee, John Jack, Frank Curtis, Peterson, Lovett, Gould, Kerr, Young, Troy, May, Francis, Coulson, Halsell, Zassler, Bull and Weeks – all young men killed far from home whilst slaving for the enemy
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. From one of the worst camps, Stalag VIIIb, reports came that 28 men had been shot whilst attempting to escape. Included among them were Joseph Reid and Samuel Green at Arbeitskommando E22. After they were shot and killed their bodies were left out in the open for two days as a warning. It was a warning few could fail to heed. Not all of those shot whilst escaping were killed in cold blood. When two Palestinian Jews, Krause and Eisenberg, escaped from a working party near Katowicz in the summer of 1944 they were recaptured and brought back to the camp to show how they had escaped. They were then shot by the guards, their bodies falling at the point where they had escaped. Krause was killed immediately but Eisenberg survived the shooting, only to later die of pneumonia.