Description
Object description
British private served as clerk with 5th Bn Royal Sussex Regt, 133rd Infantry Bde, 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Div in GB, France and Belgium, 1939-1940; prisoner of war in Stalag VIII-B, Lamsdorf, Arbeitskommando E708, Laband and Arbeitskommando E733, Karlsthal, Germany, 7/1940-3/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Aspects of period as private with 5th Bn Royal Sussex Regt, 133rd Infantry Bde, 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Div in GB, France and Belgium, 1939-1940: background to joining Territorial Army, 1939; mobilisation, 8/1939; work as company clerk; reception for British Army troops at Cherbourg, France, 4/1940; disorganisation at Mont de Cats, 5/1940; capture by Germans; lack of food and drink available; conditions of prisoners of war on first march; tendency to blame Belgian capitulation for situation. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Stalag VIII-B, Lamsdorf, Arbeitskommando E708 Laband and Arbeitskommando E733, Karlsthal, Germany, 7/1940-3/1945: German threat to shoot prisoners of war as escapees on march; journey in cattle truck to camp; appearance of camp.
REEL 2 Continues: delousing; German interest in Jewish prisoners of war; joining work party at Arbeitskommando E708 Laband; nature of work; work routine; relations with Polish civilians; feeding arrangements; strict working regime maintained by Germans; issue of winter clothing; period of sickness, 10/1940; joining coal mining work party; nature of work; arrival of Red Cross parcels; contact with home; inadequacy of food; prisoner of war attitude towards work; removal to main camp at Lamsdorf, 1/1941; conditions in huts; discipline.
REEL 3 Continues: relations between prisoners of war in main camp; improvement in conditions, 1941; learning German language; joining work party at Arbeitskommando E733 at Karlsthal, 3/1941; river bank work; adjustment of work regime to prisoner of war wishes; accommodation; attitude to escape; German beating of prisoner of war who refused to work; techniques for dodging work; relations with guards; lack of sexual problems; character of Karlsthal area; joining forest work party, 7/1944; monitoring war's progress; failure of German attempts to secure collaboration from prisoner of war, 1943.
REEL 4 Continues: organised character of main camp-life at Stalag VIII-B, Lamsdorf on return from Arbeitskommando E733, Karlsthal, 1944; separation of Royal Air Force personnel; German ill treatment of Soviet prisoners of war; joining work party in forest, 1944; use of cigarettes to influence German guard; changed situation for Germans by 1944; accommodation in hut; forestry work; German fear of regime; his lack of knowledge of fate of Jews in Germany; prisoner of war trek westward including accommodation and rations, 3/1945. Aspects of liberation and return to GB via Czechoslovakia, 1945: train journey across Czechoslovakia, 5/1945; liberation by former Soviet prisoner of war partisans; journey to Prague, Czechoslovakia and on westward.
REEL 5 Continues: passage through Soviet lines to Americans; journey to GB via Rheims, France; processing of former prisoners of war in GB; long-term effects of captivity; attitude towards Germans; repatriation hopes as prisoner of war.