Read Online Hitler's British Slaves by Sean Longden - Free Book Online
Authors: Sean Longden
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In those five weeks they had not been given a single day off, were working 12-hour shifts and had no cooking and washing facilities or sanitation. Nor were the prisoners given proper protective footwear despite often working with their feet submerged in water. The lack of access to cooking facilities was in many ways an irrelevance since they received no Red Cross parcels of food to be cooked. The discomfort of their immediate introduction to the rigours of working in German industry was a fitting precursor for the turmoil they and their fellow workers would endure in the final months of the war.
4
The Land Army
‘I knew all the places to get food … If you walked in a barn and you saw a hen start moving and cackling then she’d laid an egg…
You knew if a cow kicked out when you touched its udders then it wanted milking. I used to know when the pig was going to have babies, then I’d wait a couple of weeks and go down and knock one off… There were lots of things you could use, it was like fieldcraft.’ 1
Whilst those prisoners forced to labour in heavy industry endured appalling conditions and bemoaned their fate, many of those sent to work on farms praised their good fortune. Compared to some of the work on offer, the Landwirtschaft Arbeitskommandos were not a bad place to be sent. Whether they were working on small family farms high in the mountains of Austria or vast state farms in the newly acquired lands of the east, the prisoners enjoyed a relatively comfortable life. It was not that their work was not heavy – indeed like all prisoners they endured much during their captivity – yet the countryside offered a freedom that many were to enjoy to the utmost. As a result agricultural labouring became possibly the most favoured of all work details. The work was demanding, especially at harvest time, but they spent most of their days outside in the fresh air and compared to life down coal mines or in heavy industry, it was a blessing. There was usually enough food, even if it had to be stolen, there were plenty of women and in many cases little restriction was put on the prisoners, as one remembered: ‘They sent me to a farm for three and a half years. It was a state farm in a little village not far from Marienburg, about 20 or 30 houses. Actually we ran the farm. We had two old guards, one of them spent mostof his time with one of the women, getting his end away, so he never used to bother us much. So we ran the place.’ 2 With many of the agricultural prisoners free to make their own way to and from work they found they had entered a world far removed from the unreal world of prisoner of war camps.
Ken Willats recalled the first time he was called for work from Stalag XXa:
I don’t know how they decided who was going to go on a working party. But the Germans told farmers that if they wanted labour the Wehrmacht would supply them if they would provide board and lodging. Your name and POW number was called out from a list. The first one I was sent out on was to Bromberg on a project to strip large trees of their bark and then using a big machine to get the roots out of the ground. 3
Working at an Arbeitskommando in a Polish forest was just one of the many jobs Willats would have before he eventually settled down to spend almost three years on a state farm where labouring in all the jobs available he soon began to learn the ways of the countryside. For all he learnt in his new employment it could never erase the vivid memories of the world he came from – the same world he yearned to return to.
For some prisoners agricultural details were the perfect place to be sent. Those born and bred in the countryside were relieved to be somewhere where they could continue to practise their peacetime occupations. The livestock offered no shocks to them and the cycle of seasons and nature was what they expected of life – they had always risen with the sun and worked through the daylight hours. They had all the
4
The Land Army
‘I knew all the places to get food … If you walked in a barn and you saw a hen start moving and cackling then she’d laid an egg…
You knew if a cow kicked out when you touched its udders then it wanted milking. I used to know when the pig was going to have babies, then I’d wait a couple of weeks and go down and knock one off… There were lots of things you could use, it was like fieldcraft.’ 1
Whilst those prisoners forced to labour in heavy industry endured appalling conditions and bemoaned their fate, many of those sent to work on farms praised their good fortune. Compared to some of the work on offer, the Landwirtschaft Arbeitskommandos were not a bad place to be sent. Whether they were working on small family farms high in the mountains of Austria or vast state farms in the newly acquired lands of the east, the prisoners enjoyed a relatively comfortable life. It was not that their work was not heavy – indeed like all prisoners they endured much during their captivity – yet the countryside offered a freedom that many were to enjoy to the utmost. As a result agricultural labouring became possibly the most favoured of all work details. The work was demanding, especially at harvest time, but they spent most of their days outside in the fresh air and compared to life down coal mines or in heavy industry, it was a blessing. There was usually enough food, even if it had to be stolen, there were plenty of women and in many cases little restriction was put on the prisoners, as one remembered: ‘They sent me to a farm for three and a half years. It was a state farm in a little village not far from Marienburg, about 20 or 30 houses. Actually we ran the farm. We had two old guards, one of them spent mostof his time with one of the women, getting his end away, so he never used to bother us much. So we ran the place.’ 2 With many of the agricultural prisoners free to make their own way to and from work they found they had entered a world far removed from the unreal world of prisoner of war camps.
Ken Willats recalled the first time he was called for work from Stalag XXa:
I don’t know how they decided who was going to go on a working party. But the Germans told farmers that if they wanted labour the Wehrmacht would supply them if they would provide board and lodging. Your name and POW number was called out from a list. The first one I was sent out on was to Bromberg on a project to strip large trees of their bark and then using a big machine to get the roots out of the ground. 3
Working at an Arbeitskommando in a Polish forest was just one of the many jobs Willats would have before he eventually settled down to spend almost three years on a state farm where labouring in all the jobs available he soon began to learn the ways of the countryside. For all he learnt in his new employment it could never erase the vivid memories of the world he came from – the same world he yearned to return to.
For some prisoners agricultural details were the perfect place to be sent. Those born and bred in the countryside were relieved to be somewhere where they could continue to practise their peacetime occupations. The livestock offered no shocks to them and the cycle of seasons and nature was what they expected of life – they had always risen with the sun and worked through the daylight hours. They had all the
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