Colditz (48 page)

Rear Admiral Josef Unrug was liberated by the American Army in April 1945 and went immediately to London, where the Polish government in exile named him head of the Polish Naval Office. When the war ended he decided not to return to communist Poland. In spite of his age and distinguished career, he accepted a modest job in the French fishing industry and worked in that capacity in Agadir, Morocco, for a number of years. He spent his final years in France in a home for former superior officers of the Polish armed forces, and died there in 1973, aged eighty-nine.

Machiel van den Heuvel (“Vandy”) returned to the East Indies when the war was over and was promoted to battalion commander. He played an important part in liberating 800 Chinese in West Java, but on 29 June 1946 he was killed
in action against Indonesian rebels. He was forty-six. For all his great work as escape officer of the loyal Dutch “Sixty-Eight” he deserves, in my opinion, some national recognition for his heroism and self-sacrifice. I hope the Dutch nation will always remember him.

After leaving Colditz, Jędrzej Giertych was imprisoned in five different camps. He made no less than thirty attempts to escape, in six of which he succeeded in regaining his freedom for a short time. While in captivity he also wrote four novels, which he managed to send to his wife in Poland; unfortunately they were destroyed in the firing of Warsaw. After liberation he went to London, where he rejoined the Navy. In the autumn of 1945 he volunteered to return to Poland as a courier of the Polish government in exile, travelling with a false identity, on a mission to make contact with the Polish underground. In Warsaw he was reunited with his wife and children and in December, once more using false papers, he successfully brought his family to London. After demobilization he had a variety of jobs, finally becoming a schoolteacher. He has written seventeen books on Polish politics and history, and three accounts of his life and adventures. As I write, he still lives in London and is now eighty-one years old.
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Airey Neave won French, American and Dutch awards for valor for his outstanding contribution to the Allied resistance during the war. When it ended he had the unique experience of serving the indictments on the surviving Nazi leaders for the Nuremberg trials. He later entered British politics, becoming a leading figure in the Conservative party during the 1970s and one of Margaret Thatcher's most influential advisers. On 30 March 1979 he was tragically killed by a car bomb as he drove out of the House of Commons' car park. Irish terrorists claimed responsibility for the assassination—the first in the parliamentary precincts since 1812.

Cenek Chaloupka returned to Czechoslovakia after the war and became a flying instructor with the Czech Air Force. Sadly, he was killed in a flying accident in 1946.

Unfortunately there has been little or no contact with the RAF Czechs since 1945 until very recently. One of them, Flight-Lieutenant Josef Bryks, who was shot down on 17 June 1941 and arrived in Colditz on 7 November 1944, returned
to Czechoslovakia after the war. After the
coup d'état
in February 1948 he was dismissed from his command at Olomouc on 30 April of that year and was arrested by the Communists the following day. He was tortured, jailed and finally condemned to death. This was later changed to a life sentence, and he was sent to the notorious uranium mines at Jachymov in Bohemia. He died there, allegedly of heart failure.

Soon after the war he was awarded the MBE. He was not even allowed to come to Buckingham Palace to receive it.

Bush Parker, who joined No. 56 Operational Training Unit at Millfield, Northumbria, when the war was over, also lost his life when a plane he was piloting crashed on 29 January 1946. He was twenty-six years old.

After the war Solly Goldman emigrated to the USA. There he built up a retail business in Los Angeles, which was burnt down in the Watts riot of 1965. A bayonet wound in the stomach which he had received during the war never healed properly and in 1972 he died of its long-term effects. His unquenchable humor and spirit will never be forgotten by those who knew him in Colditz.

Florimund Duke has the following tailpiece to add to his Mission Sparrow adventure. A Hungarian officer called at American headquarters in Budapest one day in the summer of 1945. He returned safely the gold
Louis d'Or
entrusted by Duke to Major Kiraly. They were worth $6,000. The officer did not give his name and declined a receipt.

Reinhold Eggers returned to Halle when the war was over. This now lay in the Russian zone of Germany but, as Eggers could prove that he had never joined Hitler's party, he was able to re-enter his former profession of teaching, immediately becoming a headmaster and soon after a lecturer at Halle university. In September 1946, however, he was arrested by the Russians and questioned about Gestapo agents at Colditz. Charged with crimes against humanity, spying and supporting a fascist regime, he was sentenced to ten years' labor, which he served in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and Torgau prison. After his release he retired to live near Lake Constance and there he died in 1974, aged eighty-four.

The American Army relieved Colditz Castle on 16 April 1945. The Russian Army arrived in May and in due course the Americans retired to give Russia possession in accordance with the Yalta agreements.

There is now a commemorative plaque in black marble underneath the archway separating the outer and inner courtyards of the Castle. It reads:

THIS CASTLE SERVED IN 1933–34 AS AN INTERNMENT CAMP. HERE STARTED FOR MANY INFLEXIBLE ANTIFASCISTS THE PAINFUL JOURNEY THROUGH THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS. THEY FOUGHT SO THAT WE MAY LIVE.

The deafening silence concerning the war years 1939–1945 betrays the cynicism of the Iron Curtain countries towards the free world.

Editor's Note: Pat Reid was awarded the Military Cross in 1943 and the MBE in 1945. His experiences at Colditz served as the basis for a film (1955) as well as a television series (1972 to 1974). He died in 1990 at the age of seventy-nine.

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Editors were not able to verify further updates to this information as of publication.

**
Giertych died in 1992, age eighty-nine.