But the end was inevitable. Outnumbered 5 or 6 to 1, and with very few heavy weapons left, the Axis surrendered on 8 May to the Allies in Tunisia. We marched over a hill to some British tanks, who gave us cigarettes, and we gave them chocolate, and they were very friendly. We were sent to a makeshift POW camp near Bone. In the camps we didn't get too much to eat, so we had to try to get an egg, or some couscous from the locals. We then took a ship to Oran. By that time many men had lice, so we were disinfected. The same day, we were loaded onto a couple American ships that were heading back to the US. We arrived in New York on 30 May, 1943. On the voyage though, many had gotten lice again, so we were then disinfected once more.
On June 3, we arrived, via train, in the POW camp in Huntsville, Texas. The camp was divide into 3 areas, and each area held 1200 men. Next to the camp, a sports field had been built. Each prisoner was entitled to eat what a regular soldier eats. We were given enough food, and there were few complaints. At first, there wasn't any real work for us, so we just did small jobs in the camp, like mowing lawns etc., and a few volunteered for the camp fire brigade. We were also allowed to learn several languages (English, French, and Spanish), and to read and write, and to study many different topics like math and so on, all organized by the prisoners. There was also a monthly newspaper, put together by the prisoners. There was a chapel, an orchestra, a theater, and once a month there would be a big show, with the band playing, some would sing, and there would be a play or two. In this camp, we ate corn for the first time, as in Germany it was used for feeding chickens. One prisoner came up with the following poem:
Mais fördert in allen Ländern
Bei Hühnern die Legerei.
Bei uns braucht's nicht zu versuchen,
Wir legen ja doch kein Ei. | Corn furthers in all countries
With chickens the laying of eggs.
Don't bother to try that with us,
We never will lay an egg.
|
Finally they figured that we should work a little. So they put to work in the cotton fields. Through our stubbornness, we decided to stick together, and picked only up to a certain amount of cotton in a day. When you are a POW, you're not supposed to be put to work in an industry. We were used to getting two days holiday for Pfingsten, so on the first of those two days, we decided not to work. The Americans closed much of the camp down, including the kitchen. On the second day, the POW's decided to go back to work. Next, a local rice farm needed help for the harvest, so some of us were sent to work there. Each morning, the farmer would come to pick us up, and drive us home at the end of the day. I had learned quite a bit of English, so I was the interpreter for our group of ten or so men. This particular farmer was really nice. The camp food wasn't always the best, and each day the farmer's wife would serve us a different dish of rice. We really enjoyed that.
Early in 1944, I was sent to another camp, Huntsville, Alabama. Here I saw a bit of injustice. The Americans were trying to force non-commissioned officers to work. By the Geneva convention, officers are not supposed to work. The officers refused, and as a result, got little food, so we threw them some food over the fence. Then, after a quick stay in Georgia, some of us were sent to Florida, south of Miami. At first I worked at a big army depot. There was a big repair shop, where old army trucks were being repaired, and then sent to Russia. POW's weren't supposed to work in industry, so we maintained buildings, cut grass etc. Eventually, we loaded trucks on railcars. Next I moved on to a maintenance shop at Miami airport, and I started working in the paint shop, which prior to the war had been my trade. At this camp, I met some guys who had somehow put together a radio, and we could listen to news coming out of Havana (one of the guys spoke Spanish), as well as local stations. At that time, Cuba was some what friendly to the Germans, so the German news we heard from Havana, was much different than from the American stations. I think that the American news was much closer to the truth. I stayed in Miami until the end of the war.
In April 1946, we were sent back to New York, were we boarded a ship to Antwerp. Now under British control, we then ended up in a camp south of Brussels. In this camp, the food was extremely bad, and many POW's died. However, those of us who had come from the USA, had been well fed, so we were able to survive. The camps were exactly like described in a book by James Bach, The Other Losses. There was a high barbed-wire fence. You were lucky if you were able to get a tent, there were few blankets, and the food was hardly believable. We were there only for 6 weeks, but you could see that the guys had lost a lot of weight. Then, for some reason, instead of being sent home, we were shipped to England. There we were greeted by an English major or colonel, who was really impressive; he said straight out "...you are here to help rebuild the country, in retaliation for destroying much of it..." At least that guy was fair, he told us straight out what was going on. We spent a year in England. At first we worked on a farm, then we dug ditches for water, gas, sewer lines for new houses, and we were also a while in a brickworks. It was then 1947, and we were about to go home, But first, we had to be de-nazified. There were three classes: Nazi, mitläufer (just going along with it), and anti-nazi. The anti-nazis were sent home first. I was a mitlaufer. Last to leave were the supposed nazis. They were considered Nazis, because maybe they were nasty to the interrogators. I arrived home, with an old British army uniform, with patches on it indicating that I was a POW. |
