A soldier of interest was a pow in Germany and unfortunately his prison camp records were in a batch marked as missing. Can someone tell what details are on these records. I wondered if his civil occupation would have been recorded? Thanks
It may be worth checking if your man completed a liberation qustionnaire after being repatriated. They always list civillian trade or profession. Drew5233 or PsyWar.Org will copy the questionnaire if one is available.
Hi Guy; I know my soldier was a monumental sculptor before the war, he was taken prisoner and interned in Germany where he used his trade to make and inscribe memorials at the camp whilst a PoW. In order for him to do that I presume he must have revealed his civil occupation, and was allowed to use his skills in between working in the salt mines. I just wondered if prisoners pre-war details would be on the PoWs records.
If I remember correctly the prewar occupation of POWs was recorded as the Germans used it to assign the men to work details. The cards are in the National Archives but are currently sealed. Individual records can only be accessed via Freedom of Information request.
My guy was taken prisoner in the Arras area, anyone know the route the PoWs would have taken to reach Scheidemuhl? A check on route planner it is around 1000 kms plus by road for todays travellers, I presume they would have been trained, anyone know likely station they would have embarked from.
The men were mostly marched for a large part of the journey. My great grandfather was captured in the same area (Franleu near Abbeville) and recounted marching from there through Belgium and Holland to the Rhine where they were crammed onto barges to Germany.
Hi Dannemois, As a matter of interest. Do you happen to know where the salt mines that you make mention of were ?
He was held in a variety of camps - Here’s a breakdown based on the information I’ve gathered over the last few years. Along with other prisoners taken during the Battle of France he was marched through France, Belgium and Holland until they reached the Rhine river. From there the men boarded barges that took them to Bavaria. John described the four days spent on the barges as ͞worse than Hell,͟ the men were ridden with lice and were given no food or water by the Germans who kept their machine guns trained on the prisoners at all times. The barges took them near Dortmund where he was processed at an unnamed camp and then sent along with many of his fellow surviving Argylls to Stalag IXC at a place called Bad Sulza near Weimar. According to the Red Cross he arrived at the camp on the 1st of July 1940. The camp at Bad Sulza was part of a network of sub-camps where prisoners were sent to Arbeitskommandos to work for the Germans. While officers and NCOs were forbidden from working by the Geneva Convention, no such protection was afforded men below the rank of Corporal. As part of their processing the men would be asked what their profession had been in civilian life which helped the Germans assign them to jobs. John spent two days at the main camp at Bad Sulza where all of his valuables were taken away before being sent to Arbeitskommando 1401 on the 6th of July. The prisoners were set to work in a salt mine located at Bleicherode. As he put it, he was given a ͞pick and shovel to work for the Fatherland.͟ After their long journey it was not surprising that he described himself as being ͞in a very weak and sad condition after all the tramping and marching we had come through with very little to put in our stomach as we had no meals off the Jerries one month on the march.͟ Between July and October John was given a series of odd jobs doing general labouring before being sent to work on a gardening detail in the forest burning old wood which helped keep him warm at least. After six weeks of this he was finally sent to work down the mine where he did ͞heavy work handing the heavy tubs for six hours͟. He was given a tour of inspection to see the different workings of the mine. He describes the mine as ͞clean and tidy͟. The prisoners worked alongside German miners whom John described as ͞good workers,͟ who ͞expect everybody to do the same.͟ At this point John’s account of his captivity ends and the rest of his time as a POW has to be figured out from his photographs, snippets of dates and place names in his journal and various books and official documents. John remained at Stalag IXC until 6th October, 1941 when he was transferred to Oflag XC in Lubeck. He arrived on the 7th of October and two days later he was sent to Oflag VIB at Warburg. His diary also records an inoculation at Warburg on 07/03/1942. I think John volunteered to be an orderly (far easier work than a salt mine!) which would explain his being in a series of officer’s camps. ICRC records show that John remained at Warburg until the 4th September 1942 when he was transferred to Oflag XXIB Schubin in Poland. As a result of an escape attempt the camp was closed in April 1943 and all prisoners including John were sent to Stalag Luft III at Sagan which had recently been increased in size. John left Oflag XXIB for Sagan on the 17th of April 1943. John’s logbook records another inoculation at Sagan on 18/05/43 and as well as photos the logbook records the names and addresses of several of his fellow prisoners. John remained at Stalag Luft III until the 29th of July 1944. He reached the nearby Stalag VIIIC on 29th July 1944 where he stayed briefly before being sent on to Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz where he arrived on the 16th of august 1944. At Gorlitz it would appear he was sent to a coal mine at Fellhammer, Poland as part of Arbietskommando 12403. As the Red Army continued its relentless advance through German occupied territory, camps in the east were evacuated and its occupants forced to march westwards, and a great many men from Stalag 344 arrived at Görlitz, having endured appalling winter weather. On the 14th February the evacuation of Stalag VIIIA began when a large group of US soldiers with 140 British were marched off, followed on the next day by a further 1,200. On the 17th February a Hospital train whisked 700-800 sick prisoners away to Stalag XIB, while the small number for whom room could not be found proceeded on foot or on the back of horse drawn carts. This process continued until the camp was empty and abandoned, however a few prisoners had hid themselves in it to await the arrival of the Russians and their freedom. From the information I have it appears likely that John was on one of the trains to Fallingbostel as this is the last camp name I could find in his diary and none of the men who marched out of the camp ended up in Stalag IXB. The ICRC records show that he arrived at Stalag XIB near Falingbostel on the 23rd February. He remained at Fallingbostel until the camp was liberated by the 7th Armoured Division on April 16th 1945. He was back in Stirling in time for his story to appear just over a week later in the Stirling Observer on the 24th April.
Sadly; I am the only family member that has shown interest. I learnt he was the sculptor who cut the names on the Black Granite monument at Pila, which thankfully has shed some light on his time as PoW. His army papers tell very little, nothing in local papers when repatriated so to be honest I am clutching at straws. I can see from your message your ggrandfather was Scottish, would you mind telling me his regiment and full name?
No problem - Lance Corporal John Conway, 7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He died when I was 4 and I knew very little when I was growing up apart from the fact he was a POW and my mum’s claim that he was Douglas Bader’s batman at some point (not been able to verify that so far - they were in the same camps at the same time but that’s all I have). My granddad passed away when I was at university so I never had the chance to ask him about his father or find out if any of his documents had survived. Everything I know I’ve found out in the last two years.