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Day 7 contd. in the Footsteps of a Polish POW, Geordie Hussar.
Our guide at the Bruntal Museum (see previous blog) told of two or three English soldiers who had befriended a Czech worker and secured a map of the area. They had escaped from my dad's work camp E352, Machold's Linen Factory, but no one ever knew if they were successful.
Hugh Patterson gives this account:
‘
My pal Jimmy took a fancy to the idea of sneaking out, together with someone else, who had someone (a girl) to see. He might have been called Alan, I don’t remember. Anyway, they had a go, but were unlucky or unskillful. They were recaptured and taken to another camp..... ….
. It was increasingly rumoured that the Germans were retreating from the Russians, first marching any prisoners further back into Germany. This was the notorious ‘Long Walk’. …. We heard of POWs marching westwards through our town. Jimmy and Alan who, when captured outside camp, had been put in another camp further east. Imagine our astonishment when those two turned up in this party which made a short stop at our camp for rations. Our friends were welcomed heartily. I don’t think we in our camp realised how near to our doorstep the Russians had reached.
Once again I made a decision that now startles me with its apparent recklessness. …… whatever the reason, I changed places with Alan and packed up my possessions to go on the March with Jimmy. We walked in the snow over a range of hills which would be the Sudetenland Highlands. I suppose we marched ten to twenty miles, suffering some discomfort, but we were well shod. At Hannsdorf we stop in a tiny billet where I remember being glad we had not to remain there. I found it very claustrophobic’. So we took the car to Hannsdorf (now Hanušovice) from Bruntal, it was 53 km and not an obvious route. Not going south but almost due west. Hanušovice is tucked high up in a valley and still has industry and a railway running through it.
‘
The column then trudged on for another day, ending up at a new building, again barbed wire enclosed. It was a camp for N.C.O.s, Stalag 344, E352. Jimmy declared himself a Leading Seaman and I registered in my own name. Surprisingly, there was no difficulty…..
…The weather improved and we found we were on the outskirts of a very pretty little village called Postrelmov in Bohemia,
Czechoslovakia’.
This is a much smaller journey of 24km down the River Morava, all down hill and very beautiful. We could understand my dad’s enchantment with the place.
‘
The Russians continued to advance and we resigned ourselves to wait for them’. As the spring came Dad befriended a blond haired girl, Bo Havilova. They were communicating in German, second language to both of them, through the wire fence of the camp. And Dad became the camp cook, havying the chance to go daily to the bakers with a guard, where further liaison may have been possible. Her father was a local notary.
‘
The day came when the Russian Army forces were about to arrive. Suddenly, one morning, we prisoners became aware that the German guards were no longer there. They had apparently abandoned us!…… packing up my belongings hurriedly I then had the great thrill of walking out of the gates unopposed, and found my way to Bo’s house.
That night we, with the whole family, gathered in the capacious cellar, huddled and cuddled together, apprehensively listening to the harsh sounds of the struggle for the possession of the village. Through a small window at ground level we could see troops milling about and hear shouting voices, footsteps and gunfire’. Dad spent three weeks with the family. He went back to the camp later to retrieve his diary which he had regretfully left behind. It was deserted, the POWs taken by the Russians, but his diary was no where to be found. Bo’s dad arranged papers for Dad and two others to travel to Prague on the train. They were then directed to Pilsen where he met some of his POW colleagues from Postrelmov who had had a dreary time in rough Russian camps.
They were flown from an American base to Reims in a rattling big plane. Then from there on a Lancaster at Billinghurst in Surrey
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