Authors: John McCallum
Not many POWs had the good fortune to have a big brother to look after them in such circumstances, and to think he was there because of me made me feel terribly guilty at times. Jimmy should
have been at home working in his nice reserved occupation with a perfectly clear conscience, but when I decided to join the Reserves he re-enlisted to help me through the first couple of years. His
reward for this brotherly love was four years behind barbed wire, doomed to spend the whole of the war away from his beloved wife.
The deprivation that the married men suffered was naturally more acute than that of the single men, and quite often I could see the effects of it on both Joe and Jimmy. Being such strong
characters, they came through these spells with flying colours. On the other hand, the bachelors reverted to the roving eye technique, which was, of course, possible when you were out on a working
party where you could look and let your mind wander. During the first two years in Silesia most of the female temptresses were dressed in oily boiler suits and were built like tanks. This
wasn’t surprising as they were doing the jobs of their absent husbands who had worked in the engine sheds and railway yards before being drafted, and only the strongest type of female could
survive.
The camp was a wooden structure surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence put there, I suppose, to protect us from wild animals or anything else that might harm us. It certainly
wasn’t there to keep us in, or if it was, it didn’t work. We couldn’t see the village from our compound; we were just around the corner from the main street and very close to the
local farm.
Before we ever set eyes on the village, the question of allocation of jobs had to be settled. Jimmy pulled a job in the spa bath-house, Joe became an assistant to the joiner and I became a
plasterer’s labourer – a fine re-allocation of three technicians.
Our bosses were supposed to wear armbands, showing them to be assistant guards. Their job was to collect us each morning and return us to the camp in the evening when we finished work, but both
the armbands and the collection idea were soon given up and we were trusted to appear and disappear on time.
The plastering team consisted of the boss, one Herr Springer, who was an uncommunicative fifty-year-old with a bad tummy, and his number two, a ragdoll character called Franz, who had lost all
his toes in World War One and consequently walked strangely. He was also one of the nicest men I have ever met. When Springer wasn’t around, Franz took it upon himself to try and teach me
some German. He was so successful that years later I was asked where on earth I had learned such hillbilly German.
Bad Karlsbrunn itself is a small mountain spa village with healing peat baths and special spring water, which tasted awful but reputedly was good for the innards. If this was true, then why did
Herr Springer suffer so much? The main business was the baths and all the rest was hotels, ranging from the top-class down to the ordinary ski hotels. The type of skiing was fairly restricted as
there were no ski lifts of any kind and the only skiers around were the local children, who were very good and exciting to watch. This was hardly surprising as they started to ski as soon as they
could walk. The slopes were also used by the German army and formed a training area for mountain troops.
Most of the residents in the village were involved in the holiday business, which was why the village existed. There were only a few shops on the main street, such as the butcher, the baker and
the shop that sold everything, including souvenirs. In the beginning the locals were quite stand-offish. This was hardly surprising, since we were the enemy: all they knew about the British Tommies
was what they had been fed through the powerful German propaganda machine. Suddenly here were twenty of them in their midst. Fortunately for us, we had now been supplied with new battledress and
everyone looked smart and tidy. Those who wished also acquired shorts and shirts for summer wear, which looked great with our all-weather tans. As time passed the villagers realised we were
successfully doing the jobs we had come to do. The general attitude became more relaxed and we began to blend into the scenery – so much so that some of the visitors who didn’t know we
were POWs would nod, smile and even pass the time of day, thinking probably we were members of the Pioneer Group of the Organisation Tod, whose dress was very similar to ours.
By now all the female talent in the village had been spotted, discussed and placed in order of desirability, which was, of course, only a mental exercise which could never be realised under our
present circumstances. But, as they say in the song, you can’t stop people from dreaming, no matter how you guard them. Some orientals say that the pattern of our life is made like a tapestry
and cannot be altered. Some people disagree and say that if you look closely you can see where there are options to take a path less travelled. Here in Karlsbrunn I had a choice between having an
easy life or one fraught with danger. This is what happened.
It was midsummer and all was right with the world. I was enjoying the physical labour of mixing cement and sand in front of one of the hotels where Franz and I were repairing the stairway and,
as I stopped for a breather, caught sight of a blonde Mädchen watching me from one of the hotel windows. She was leaning on the window-sill and the sunlight was doing wonderful things to her
hair. I looked away and then back again. Sure enough, she was still watching me and there was a hint of a smile on her face which looked quite lovely. Although this was only visual contact, it was,
nonetheless, extremely exciting, and mixing the proper quantities of sand and cement became of secondary importance. I returned what I hoped was a smile in her direction and this time her smile was
unmistakable and definitely for me. Palpitations now set in, and I knew it wasn’t sunstroke. When I looked up at the window again, the vision had vanished and now I wondered if I had really
seen anything at all. Had I finally succumbed to frustration and joined the ‘Stalag Happy’ brigade?
That evening I told Jimmy about the incident. In his wisdom he gave me various pieces of advice on how to deal the situation. The main theme was to exercise extreme caution, as the penalty for
fraternisation with the enemy during hostilities was execution of both parties. The best thing would be to forget the whole thing had ever happened. He also said that if the young lady was a
visitor to the hotel, she would soon leave. This was a possibility that I hadn’t thought of, and it didn’t appeal to me at all. Jimmy was right: proceed with caution and don’t
make any fast moves.
Next day I could hardly wait to get into the village. We were still working at the same hotel and the only thought in my mind was ‘will I see her again?’ or had the bird already
flown? The question was answered in the afternoon when she suddenly appeared from the rear door pushing a pram. This really set me back. Obviously she was a young married woman with a baby and her
husband was fighting on the Eastern Front – or somewhere else – but she had more or less flirted with me the day before. How could she? But maybe that was all rubbish and it was her
little sister or brother. Or maybe she was babysitting. When she spotted me staring at her, she stopped and fussed a bit with the baby, then straightened up and subjected me to that happy smile
again. I was devastated to say the least. In her mountain dirndl she looked a real picture. I was in love.
In my return smile, I tried to say everything that I felt, but probably managed only to look soppy. Then she moved slowly away towards the village. It took me about a week to find out who she
was and about another week to find out her name. Remembering Jimmy’s advice about being circumspect, I found it difficult to ask questions without raising suspicions. For now, let us call her
Traudl. She was the daughter of the caretaker couple in the hotel where I first saw her.
My German course with Franz now took on a new urgency and importance. I knew that if by any chance I ever made contact with Traudl, questions and answers would have to be dealt with in German. I
worked hard on my side. I obtained a German/English dictionary and set myself the task of memorising two or three new words every day. For me, this was a considerable undertaking, but I had a
powerful incentive to study – conversing with Traudl.
The mood in our working party was extremely high. The pleasant surroundings were to our liking. After the horrors of Upper Silesia, this was a veritable holiday camp. After two
years of misery, we were all set to enjoy the pleasant quirk of fate that had placed us here. There was not a single complaint about any member of the party not giving satisfaction on the jobs they
were doing. Our food from the Kur Hotel was satisfactory and the Red Cross parcels supplemented our diet nicely. So what more could a body want?
Take twenty men, feed them, make them fit, lock them up every night after work and what have you got? Big trouble. All those healthy hormones being generated – and what do you tell them?
Forget it and go to sleep? Unfortunately, hormones don’t listen.
The German army guards were very understanding and allowed us to play football on a piece of spare ground adjacent to the camp as there wasn’t enough room in our compound. On Sundays we
would play for two or three hours at a time. Those who didn’t want to play or watch were locked in the camp while the guards supervised the game. Football helped us to get rid of some surplus
energy, but the underlying problem remained. The rooftop demonstrations we have nowadays in our prisons, the fights with wardens, prisoners taking hostages and other types of misconduct all stem
from the same source – overactive hormones.
Some of the lads were working near a group of Greek girls in the village and found them quite receptive to their advances. There was, of course, no possibility of any contact with them during
the day, even though the ladies indicated where their living quarters were. So began the first talks in the barracks of how to get out of the camp at night and, more importantly, how to get back in
safely. Everyone agreed that a bolt-hole was a good idea, even if it was never used. The problem was to get from our bungalow into the compound without using any of the windows or doors. After a
lot of discussion, a decision was reached which met with everyone’s approval: using an existing trap-door in the floor of the kitchen. When we lifted the lid, it exposed a cavity under the
floor about three feet deep, lined with wood, which had obviously been a cold store. Our planning experts removed the wood from the end nearest the wall and made a tunnel which came up through the
floor of the outside toilet in the compound.
It sounds simple, but it wasn’t easy to conceal. When it was finished, it was a first-class job and quite undetectable. The wooden floor in the outside toilet was also doctored. It became
a lid which could be lifted and replaced easily when you knew how to do it. This made a good vantage point for checking whether it was safe to approach the barbed-wire perimeter fence, part of
which could be lifted sufficiently above ground level to allow someone to crawl through, closing the wire behind him.
It was agreed that the use of the tunnel would be under the supervision of Bill James, who would decide when it was safe to use it and how many could go on the same night. It was also agreed
that the tunnel would never be used for an escape ‘for real’. In all working parties there was an unwritten rule that no one should escape from a good camp, the proper procedure being
to return to the main camp and then choose a camp where conditions would not be jeopardised by an escape. Shortly after its completion, another use was found for the mole-hole.
We were contacted by an escapee from another camp and agreed to put him up for one night. We asked a million questions, but his stock answer was: did we not get all this information from our
radio? We didn’t have a radio but it was then agreed that we should try to acquire one. The think-tank went into operation. We knew that if a radio was stolen anywhere in the surrounding area
we would be the prime suspects, so we would have to go further afield. But how could we pinpoint a target in a strange mountain area? I finally came up with a possible solution. On odd occasions
when I wasn’t needed by the plasterers, I was used by the local van driver on trips to buy provisions for the village. This meant travelling to the nearest town, where we usually indulged in
the luxury of an ersatz coffee at a Gasthaus; on the sideboard of its sitting room lived a large radio.
It was agreed that the distance from the camp was about right to avoid suspicion, but could we cover the ten miles there and back, partly on the road and partly cross-country in the dark,
lugging a heavy radio? Was it really a viable proposition, how many men would we need, when would we set out and how long would it take us? Every question required careful thought as our lives
would depend on getting the answers correct. It was agreed that the prize was worth the effort. The next step was picking the team and setting the date, the latter being dependent on the weather,
which would have to be good.
I would have to go, as I was the only one who knew the way; Bill decided he would be another and that he would make the entry with me and bring the set out. Another four stalwarts would be
needed to cover us when we were inside. They would also be able to share the carrying of the radio back to camp. Jimmy was an automatic choice as one of the four, which made me feel a lot safer; we
had a mutual understanding which did not require words and almost amounted to thought transference.
Such an undertaking showed the state of our minds after three years of war. In peacetime the whole idea would have seemed reprehensible, but here we were happily planning and discussing
breaking, entering and stealing.
Almost every working day now I saw Traudl somewhere in the village. In my heart I believed she went out of her way to make this possible. On my side, if a day went by without my
seeing her I felt it was wasted. Then fate stepped in and the pace quickened. Herr Springer told the guard that they would be away on a certain day and could they please arrange for me to have some
gainful employment elsewhere. I wasn’t very pleased about this until I heard where it was: the basement of the hotel where Traudl lived. The job was to pick out the bad potatoes from the good
ones in the hotel cellar cold store – a real stinker of a job in more ways than one, especially for a fresh air fiend like myself.