Generally they were quite helpful. These are the camps that housed captured members of the enemy armed forces, crews of ships of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft. Another patient was Tommy Hughes who had a badly cut head, with shaven hair and masses of bandages; Ginger Rutherford, a Geordie with a lot of cuts and bruises, and a young spitfire pilot, Stan Griffith, with a huge black-eye and frostbite alter loosing a boot. During the Second World War, Dresden contained many prisoners of war (POWs) behind German lines under terrible conditions. I was the camp doctor’s first patient at the Lazaret. Prisoners were generally given two meals a day – thin soup and black bread. The Oberst turned up again (with Hauptman Wemer) and he was furious. More severe cases (frequent bowel motions not seen to be responding to medicine & diet, perhaps pyrexial) were admitted and Twee would perform the ‘fork testâ⦠a stool specimen was obtained and if faeces passed through fork prongs, bed and sulphaguanidine was the treatment. You can also buy the book by clicking on the buttons to the left. This issue was circumnavigated, however, by a decision made in 1943 to declare German soldiers taken prisoner not as POWs, but as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF). In late 1944, as the tide of the war turned against Germany, the Nazi authorities began to move thousands of prisoners towards the interior of Germany, away from the advancing Allied armies. Several hundred gallons of petrol burning less than 20 feet from you is an occasion for rapid action in the way of evacuation of the area, which five of us did before the plane blew up or crashed. Later a case of deep melancholia was, Ampoules of Sterile Water & sodium chloride, Prontosil Powder (M&B 693 -Sulphapyridine). The camps were located all over the US, but were mostly in the South, due to the higher expense of heating the barracks in colder areas. Eisenhower's German POW Death Camps - A US Guard's Story By Martin Brech 1-28-2 In October, 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the U.S. army. Indeed, with the German soldiers interacting with American guards and Alabama residents, the presence of Axis POWs brought the war to the Alabama homefront in a unique way. German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II; This article includes a list of related items that share the same name (or similar names). But it seemed to work. Article 10 required that PoWs should be lodged in adequately heated and lighted buildings where conditions were the same as German troops. In Reprinted Articles I canât remember where the seeds came from for this venture. Belaria had apparently been a cadet training area for the Wehrmacht before it was turned into a prisoner of war camp. German Prisoner of War Camps during World War II If you want to see a larger version of this map then click on the thumbnail map at the bottom of this page. He would visit every 2 or 3 weeks and in emergencies if he could. Review, Definition of Terrorism – Social and Political Effects, The History of Plague – Part 1. The crew of the German submarine U-118 in captivity on U.S. soil. Hot water was made available twice daily from the camp kitchen in jugs. Prisoners were usually housed in one-storey wooden barracks which contained bunk beds (two or three high) and a charcoal burning stove in the middle of the room. The 16 survivors were picked up by an American destroyer and, like hundreds of thousands of other German soldiers, sailors and fliers, were placed in a stateside POW camp for the duration of the Second World War. The third side was eventually used to build extra huts as the camp was expanded to accommodate extra prisoners. The patient was warned about not having an erection for fear of disastrous surgical consequences. We had just dropped 13,000 pounds of bombs⦠a 4,000 pound “cookie” plus incendiaries and we were stooging along at 163 mph (280 km/hr) taking infra-red photographs for the first time in WW2, when we were attacked from below by a German night fighter which hit the port wing and fuselage, setting the wing on fire and wrecking my instrument panel. In the ensuing melee the POW w back to his hut but was shot in the stomach and was taken to hospital. Life in the camps was a vast improvement for many of the POWs who had grown up in “cold water flats” in Germany, according to former Fort Robinson, Nebraska, POW … We were able to have British army boots, shirts and wool underclothing and later some American greatcoats and gloves were available and kit. Cotton bandages of various widths were available, and we used to wash the soiled ones to use again. History lies in the heart of the debate. As previously stated common things were common: Bruises and Sprains These received Liquor Hammamelis, a bandage and when appropriate, heat and massage. Out into the cold night air (it was about 2020 hours) count 5, pull the rip cord, a jagging thrust In the thighs and back and⦠utter silence. Daily routine varied from camp to camp but all prisoners would be expected to parade at least once daily for a roll-call. In the camp, POWs were ‘on parade’ twice daily for roll call and the ferrets used to inspect the huts while we were parading. Guards marched on each side of the column at about 20-25 metre intervals. Skin Lesions. He had very black hair and a black moustache which came down over his mouth and which he frequently chewed, when he was not smoking. The other was the case of a New Zealander, in his mid 20s, who developed phimosis which required circumcision. She said the POW's were paid, which enabled many to regain a life after the war, and added that all the POW's were re-patronized, and knows of only one escapee who later became a U.S. citizen. Eventually, every state (with the exceptions of Nevada, North Dakota, and … The Oberst just shrugged his shoulders, got into his car and drove off. Willi Bungart is a German POW who was captured aged 17 and spent four years in a number of British POW camps. This was when numbers in the camp shot up and Dr. Monteuuis, who was known as ‘Twee’, after find finding out that I had been a medical student, asked me to join the Lazaret staff to help out, about April 1944. Place: Germany Copyright: Public . For a comprehensive list of World War 2 facts, including the primary actors in the war, causes, a comprehensive timeline, and bibliography, click here. He was pigeon-toed and constantly gave the Germans the idea he was a bit mad, walking round the compound pretending he had a dog on a lead. To do this, the Germans had separated off some huts to form their admin centre or vorlager and then surrounded the remaining huts with a double row of barbed wire, about 4 metres high, with a gap of a metre between the rows. It dropped to about 1 between 6. He had been invalided from the Stalingrad front but I did not discover his name. After Christmas, we were moved to Zagan, Upper Sil-esia (in the former Polish territory) by cattle-truck (8 horses, 40 men) to Belaria compound of Stalag Luft 3. Regardless, given the facts, these camps did not hold up to the conditions mandated by the Geneva Convention. Wemer, who was not noted for his humor, was chuckling. Prisoner-of-war camps in the United States during World War II.. Half of one hut was given over to a sick-quarters or ‘Lazaret’. 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