Prison Life

It didn’t take long for Bill to slip into the routine of life in a prisoner of war camp, which included compulsory roll call twice a day, one main meal a day, and one shower a month:

Roll call is at 6.30am and 8pm.  Jerry comes round each hut (ours 50A) and checks up the totals.  In some huts he receives a poor reception, but ours is orderly enough.

 – Bill Smith, diary, 11 Jan 1944 1999/195.14aj

Rations are issued once a day, any time between 12 and 2 o’clock.  One loaf of bread between 6 men and ½ dixie of skilley.  This is either half cooked swede or barley.  Then potatoes – about 6 per man except on Mondays and Fridays when there is no issue.  A small piece of margarine 3 ins. by ½ in. per man on 6 days a week completes the issue.

- Bill Smith, diary, 26 Jan 1944 1999/195.14aj

Had a shower this morning.  This by the way is an event.  We are supposed to have that privilege once every 8 days but it doesn’t work out that way.  I am told it is generally 1 month in between showers.  I have no kit of course, only the clothes I baled out in minus my flying boots, so at the same time as we shower we take all our 3 blankets with us and have clothes and blankets de-loused.  I have seen some funny sights in my travels but this shower parade is one of the best.  We go into one room, strip right off and put our clothes on a trolley arrangement which is pushed into a fumigating chamber.  Then the battle weary and battle scarred file into the shower room and wash each other’s backs, etc… after the washing process, the naked and now pure souls enter the drying room and stand around a machine which blows out hot air.  We do this to the tunes of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as a rule… after a while our clothes are wheeled in and smell like nothing on earth.  Still we know they are at least clean. 

Bill Smith, diary, 13 Jan 1944 1999/195.14aj

Sharing a hut with 200 other men was not always a pleasant experience.  Close quarter living often resulted in petty arguments or fights, and also brought with it an increase in outbreaks of sickness, with everything from common colds and flu through to diphtheria and typhus:

To add to our general discomfort, one of our number was taken to hospital with typhus and the hut was put in quarantine for 2½ weeks from March 12.  Jerry guards were put on the door, some good – some bad.  Some wouldn’t even allow us to use the “scheisen house” outside with the result that the one and only in the barrack became full to overflowing.  Ruskies came and pumped it out, but not before the stench became unbearable.

– Bill Smith, diary, 1 March – 20 Apr 1944 1999/195.14aj

Another case of diphtheria in the hut today with a possibility of going into quarantine again.  At the moment we have 3 cases of mumps, one in hospital and 2 still in the hut, 2 cases of measles, one in hospital and the other walking around with a face like a ball of fire, plenty of sore throats and now diphtheria again.

 – Bill Smith, diary, 4 May 1944 1999/195.14aj

Furthermore, bed bugs were rife, and Bill’s hut were forced to evacuate their hut several times so it could be fumigated with cyanide. 

Despite the often difficult conditions Bill had to endure in prison, he was always grateful that he was not among the many hundreds of Russian prisoners in the camp.  Because the Soviet Government did not recognise the Geneva Convention, their prisoners received no Red Cross parcels, and had to survive on the near starvation rations given to them by their German captors:

I have spoken many times about the Russians.  I learnt today that they are not issued with any blankets and sleep on the floor.  Walking around the camp they bind their feet with all sorts of material in lieu of socks and flop around in wooden clogs.  One can go to the dump where we throw our empty tins from Red X parcels and find these poor beggars scraping the remains with spoons and devouring it like animals.  Hunger is something I never want to experience. 

– Bill Smith, diary, 31 Jan – 5 Feb 1944 1999/195.14aj

Next section: Red Cross Parcels.