The Comfort of Friends

Here I found Rudy and Russ looking for me.  They too had either dropped or thrown away their cases.  We couldn’t find Gotty.

We could see they would take a lot of time in the barracks, and we would be here for a long time waiting our turn.  The guards would come out to collect a number of POW’s and march them into the barracks, so there was nothing for us to do but wait patiently.  Rudy had some cards in his pocket, and we got one guy near us to join us.  We played bridge.  I felt calmer, and we four just sat on the ground and played cards for a long time.  We did hear that someone had been bayoneted and that several men had been bitten by the dogs.  I didn’t see this, and the men never appeared in our camp.  I don’t know if it was true or not.

As I remember, we didn’t keep score of our game, and I don’t remember it being pleasant, but it was a means of calming me.  By the time we were gathered up by the guard, most everyone else had been processed.  One of the guards we had known before told us we were so relaxed waiting that they would let us go right through.  They had been pretty rough on many of the men.

For once I was relieved to get into a camp.  Here we were relatively safe, safe as long as we obeyed the rules and, of course, safe as long as the Germans let us be safe.  We knew the rules, and they had been read to us.  They were the same.  We’d be shot instantly if we crossed the low wire fence towards the high fence.  We would be locked up at night and dogs and guards would patrol.

My friends and I didn’t get into the same barracks, but we did find Gotty, and he too had lost his case.  Now we wouldn’t get haircuts.  Gotty had been cutting our hair because he had some scissors, and he seemed to know how to do it.

The barracks had rooms along each side.  Each small room had five two-man bunks, one lower bunk and one upper bunk.  The room was crowded.  In the corner there was a small pot-belly stove.

It was summer, and although we didn’t have anything but the clothes we were wearing, we could get along.

The doors were locked; night had come, and although I was hungry, I was very tired.  I took my shoes off, tied them to my bed, and went to sleep.

 I had a lower bunk, and it was in a corner so that the bunk next to me was pressed up against my bunk in such a way that I had a sort of private area when I laid down.  I made it more private.  As time went on, I lined my little corner with the cardboard from our Red Cross boxes when I could get some.

Morning came all too soon, and we were called out to parade and counted.  It was easy, all I had to do to dress was put on my shoes.  I no longer had a toothbrush or a comb or a razor, and I wore everything I owned.

It was announced that the same four of us who had worked in the last camp as camp leaders would continue here in our jobs.  I was to continue being the secretary, which made me happy.  The job was easy, but it was a job, something to do and to think about.

We weren’t going to live in a little barracks as we had before, but we had a small barracks near the cook house where we were to work.  After the parade we received our morning bread, and it was very welcome although we had nothing but water to go with it.

There was a large pool in the middle of the camp, but there were strict orders of no bathing in the pool, and that was issued with the usual threat.

There were some POW’s who had been brought in just before us who had been prisoners for more than three years, fellows who had been captured in Africa.

We got our stew from the cook house.  Each room had a large container of it.  We took turns getting this.  We also received a bowl, a spoon, a cup, and two ersatz blankets.  We even received a Red Cross parcel to share with another fellow, all this the first day.  I again traded my cigarettes for a D bar so that I had an extra one for reserve.

It was summer so we could work at being clean, but it took planning.  You could only wash one or two things at a time so that you had something to wear while they dried.

Bathing had to be done outside where there was a faucet.  You had friends pour water over you to rinse the soap off your body, but it was cold, cold, cold.  This was a sort-of shower.

The Red Cross representative came the first week we were there, and they talked to us privately.  They told us that they had been told we had refused to carry our own cases and had either left them in the freight car or thrown them away as we had been marched under guard for our own protection from the civilians.  A couple of weeks later we each received a suitcase, cardboard of course, two sets of underwear, two pair of socks, and toilet articles.  I still wore the same shirt I had had on when I parachuted out of my plane on December 1st, 1942.  Of course, I washed it every week if I could.

This camp was very different from the first camp.  Although we still got a few new prisoners, most of us had been prisoners for many months and some for years, so there was no talk of escape.  We had sufficient bed boards in this camp for comfort.  In fact, we had enough so that we could use one if we wished to make a toy boat and sail it on the pool in the middle of the camp.

This was a man-made pool, we supposed for fire protection, and the pool was a great recreation spot for competition in sailing our toy boats.  The boats were crude as we didn’t have any tools.  I gave mine some shape by using stones to plane a sort of bow, even making a sort of sail.  It was a splendid way to spend a warm summer day, and many of us did that.

There was a bulletin board on the outside wall of the small barracks where I did my little work.  Sometimes notices were posted by our German guards.  There were a couple of guys who posted the daily currency value of cigarettes.  Cigarettes could buy anything, and I kept track of this notice.  I always bought D bars and needed to know what I’d have to pay.

About this time I received my first parcel in this camp, one from my father.  Most of it was a box of cigars.  This seemed strange to me, but I didn’t question my luck.  I did a lot of trading and had a wealth of D bars.  I kept my wealth hidden and ate them sparingly and as much as possible in secret.

We still had some guys in our camp who couldn’t adjust to this life and some who thought they could get more by acting as spies for the German guards.  Both types really suffered.  The fellows who couldn’t adjust had what seemed like nervous breakdowns.  One of them ran one day out of his barracks, jumped over the low wire fence and climbed to the top of the high wire fence, where he was shot dead by the German guards in the towers.  No one could help him as he hung on the wire, and no one could remove his body until the guards came along and did it.

There were a couple of spies that we found whom the Germans treated with contempt and abuse.  They were completely under the German guards’ control because the rest of us had nothing to do with them.  They had a bad time.

Most of us adjusted to our lives.  We established study groups.  There were fellows who could teach Spanish, French, or German and also mathematicians.  There were no books or paper but there was a fair amount of enthusiasm.

Some of the guys took to embroidery.  They made their own designs on scraps of cloth; handkerchiefs were the best if they could be found.  We each had a sewing kit, and the colored thread were threads pulled out of seams that were begged, borrowed, or purchased from anyone who had a garment with color.  Some of their work was really beautiful.

My sewing was mostly confined to my socks.  I had only three pairs, and I considered myself fortunate, but they had to be kept in repair.  The sewing kit I had from the Red Cross soon ran out of thread so to get thread I pulled threads from seams of my clothes.  Sometimes the hole in my sock was very large, and I’d have to use a weaving technique in order to make a completely new section in the sock.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999