In a German Prison Camp
EILEEN ROWLEY (VI i)
During this term a very interesting talk was given by Mr. Kenneth
Bennett, an old boy of the School, who has just returned from a
German prison camp.
Mr. Bennett was captured in May, 1940, at Boulogne, where his
company had been sent to hold up the German advance, while
important documents were evacuated.
Mr. Bennett and his companions were marched by the enemy
from Boulogne to the Franco-Belgian frontier. Here they were packed
into trucks returning from supplying the front line. As many as sixty
men were pushed into one truck and each man had to sit through the
whole journey with his knees up. When the prisoners had to climb
down they experienced. great difficulty, for their legs were very
cramped. After many tiring days, these men arrived in what was to
be their home for nearly five years.
The conditions were worst in the first nine months and more men
died then than in the remainder of the five years. Many died from
diphtheria.
Eventually, however, the camp was organized and Red Cross
parcels began to get through, without which, Mr. Bennett said, they
would never have survived.
The Russian prisoners, who were near, were treated like animals.
The Russian Government do not accept the terms of the Geneva
Convention of 1929 and so there were no Red Cross parcels for
them. When a Russian is captured he is virtually a dead man, for he
cannot let his family know that he is a prisoner and he is not allowed
to write or receive letters. These same conditions, apply to the
Germans who are captured by the Russians; hence the German dread
of being sent to the Russian front.
While Mr. Bennett was a prisoner he spent five weeks in Berlin
and, according to his report, three parts of the city is razed to the
ground.
In January, 1945, the Russians were getting uncomfortably near
and, so that the British prisoners would not be liberated, the camp
was evacuated. The prisoners had to march through and, at night,
sleep in snow many feet deep.
They passed through a town where the inhabitants were being
evacuated. In the confusion some prisoners, including Mr. Bennett,
escaped by mingling with the civilians. They stayed in the cellar
of a house until the Russians broke through and then a Jugoslav, who
could speak Russian, explained that they were prisoners of war.
Even then their troubles were not over for on either side of the
road there were pockets of resistance and the prisoners had to run
the gauntlet of German machine-gun fire. After that everything was
plain sailing. Soon they arrived in Odessa, from where they sailed
for Port Said, then they journeyed to Italy, Gibraltar and, finally,
to England.
Mr. Bennett repeated his talk a few days later for the Juniors and we are very grateful to him for sparing us so much of his valuable
leave.
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