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Day 7 in the Footsteps of a Polish POW Geordie Hussar, Bruntal
Today is the day where we truly walk in my Dad's footsteps.
As we arrived in Bruntal, mid morning, we crossed the railway line, a marker for the Emmerich Machold Linen Factory where my dad was a POW working in camp E352. (He calls it 22a in his memoir but, this doesn't tally with other documentation).
His photo clearly shows at least five markers for where his POW camp but was sited:
1 a factory chimney
2 a factory building
3 a railway line
4 a signalbox
5 a big house or houses
We walked on the east side of the line opposite the station and found 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, with ease.
The factory looks the same as my Dad's photo, but with newer buildings but in front and on the end of the original rendered brick building. The houses, only a silhouette on the phot are two substantial bourgeois houses still standing, close to the factor...... could one of these have been the industrialist's home?
The second piece of photographic evidence was
'The view from our camp' looking toward the town hall spire and two church spires behind. Walking SSW I tried to find the position where the church spires match the relative distances to the Town Hall spires to take an identical shot (like Swalows and Amazons navigating by lining up two lanterns at an inlet). It was impossible because of high hedgerows in the way. But the nearest I could get show a similar view.
Then, swivelling to take a picture of the factory and position of the POW hut I found I was taking a photo of a May Tree, as descried in yesterday's blog, on an allotment as we call them in N. E. England: a small holding, a vegetable garden strip).
So, down to the Main Square in Bruntal.
We found a historical museum above the Police Station. And a pleasant policemen showed to th tourist information office, also on the square. They were charmimg and helpful and arranged, on the spot, two eighteen year olds as translators and an 82 year old guide to open up the museum.
The sad thing that quickly became apparent was that neither the 82 year old
or the eighteen year olds felt able to share much of the war time history of the town. certainly our lack of Czech language got in the way, but the youngsters, perhaps, had had no history lessons about their own roots. The guide was ten years old in 1945 too much got in the way? He said 'Many shameful things happened at the end of the war. Nobody talked or told their stories, in fear .... anyway..... it was chaos'.
His main view was that 'everything outside the main square was knocked down in the fifties and sixties. Machold factory does not now exist'. But I think the evidence shows otherwise.
Machold the Schindler of Bruntal?
But when we came to a map of WWll Freudenthal (Happy Valley after the silver and other mineral deposits found here), now named Bruntal, the factory is marked where it clearly still stands. And even more convincingly are marked Machold and xxxx the two houses by the factory which we had spotted earlier.
He also said that people knew that Machold was a good man who looked after his prisoners, and that the Germans did not like this,
Dad
talked about being marched for a fortnightly shower in the 'Publuc Baths'. Our guide talked of separate baths for Jews and other people. But that 'The Spa' had been used by everyone. It no longer exists but is where the bank used to be at the NE corner of the square.
Dad recalls in his memoir:
'... we were appalled by the spectacle of a large group of young women, hardly recognisable as such, being marched into the factory yard and stood outside the empty block. It's hard to describe one's feelings of sorrow at the doe table of those thin, bedraggled, shaven headed, soulless looking girls, wearing, presumably, the clothes that they were wearing when arrested. For they were Jewish, of course. They were installed in the new building, which was to be their home. Young enough to be useful. They could survive as long as they could work. They had problems settling in because the sceptic tank for their waste was inadequate for such a number of people and overflowed. phew, but it was sorted out. One girl I spoke she, and I think they, came from Hungary. Now the better news.From then on, we were very pleased to see that the girls gradually looked less like slaves. They were allowed to grow their hair and look after it, keep themselves clean, and before longlooked as though the better food was doing some good. There was even some laughter now and then.
We felt that Machold mustn't be too bad.it was very heartening to see the girls' improvemenT. Although we were forbidden to mix with them, our paths crossed from time to time, leading some people fancying one another and having a little talk in pidgin German.' Other accounts say that 300 jewesses were emprisoned here making German uniforms. But that the were glad to be away from Auswich and to be kindly dealt with.
Dad refers to Emmerich Machold Jnr 1895 - 1966 as 'The White Jew'. But I can find now other accounts of this name.
As we were invited to stand on the balcony overlooking the square, the guide said that Adolf Hitler had addressed the crowd here in December 1938, after the Munich agreement had taken its toll.....
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Arnold Koch
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My great aunts were slave laborers here.
My great aunts Beilu and Rachel Herskovits both were slave laborers in this factory starting in January, 1945. Being selected to work here most likely saved their lives as it got them out of Auschwitz, where they had spent about 7 months in Barrack Z. Beilu told me that Mr. Machold tried his best to treat the laborers humanely. She told me that they were liberated by the Russians on May 5, 1945. The Russian troops included many Jews, some of them orthodox Jews who were davening. The Russian captain, who was Jewish, instructed the troops to "leave these girls alone." After liberation, the women had to remain in Bruntal for several weeks. They were able to walk around the town which was largely abandoned. Beilu spoke of a cosmetics store in the center of town that they basically ransacked and enjoyed themselves.