Hitler's British Slaves (23 page)

Although Sykes and his comrades suffered much that winter they were fortunate to be able to avoid as much work as possible, as he later wrote: ‘I must admit the long handled shovels made admirable leaning posts.’
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The rations issued to the working POWs were no more than just enough to keep them alive. As a result the contents of their Red Cross parcels were vital, something the prisoners were never able to forget: ‘Every time I see a Red Cross box I put a pound in it. If it hadn’t been for the Red Cross I’d have been dead.’
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As another man put it: ‘I never thought a cardboard box of food, about the same size as a shoe box, could make such a difference.’
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Their regard for these life-saving parcels was not misplaced. It was simple, the food within meant survival. Although each parcel might vary all were designed to provide suitable sustenance for the prisoners, making sure they had enough energy to stay alive.

However, the distribution of these parcels remained at the whim of their guards. Depending on stocks of parcels the men might be issued one parcel per man per week or one to share between any number of men. Nor did they necessarily arrive each week. In some cases prisoners seldom or never received the hallowed parcels and instead were forced to survive solely on their rations or what they could steal. The system of distribution of the parcels from the main Stalags to the work camps depended on local conditions. Often this meant that when there were transportation problems parcels would not be forthcoming for weeks on end, even though the stores were full. As a result the working prisoners would go hungry until the stores could be replenished. When they did arrive at
work detachments this meant a large batch would arrive at once. Despite the stores then being full the Germans still preferred to issue the parcels at one per week, rather than let the men enjoy the food they had previously missed out on. Often parcels were kept in a central store where the men could line up and collect certain items under the watchful eyes of their guards. If they took tinned foods the tins were opened to prevent hoarding food for escapes, and there was seldom any concern over allowing the men supplies that complemented each other. To receive a tin of condensed milk and a tin of corned beef was not unusual. Nor was the practice of refusing men the right to take the tins away, often they would have to bring mess tins into which their food would be deposited. This led to many of the prisoners gorging themselves when the parcels first arrived, meaning they would soon become hungry again until the next parcels arrived. The haphazard distribution of the contents of parcels meant many among the prisoners were to find themselves eating sardines with jam, all mixed together in a bowl, or other such unappetizing combinations. Not all guards allowed the men to have individual issues of food, instead allowing a daily allotment of food to be shared out among them. One 38-man detachment found itself sharing three tins of corned beef, two tins of meat, three tins of sardines, some milk and biscuits between them. Such rations could not supply a balanced or filling meal.

Despite all this some men were able to hoard food. Though escape was not on their minds they were careful not to eat too much for fear that the next day they might be without food. This process, known as ‘mossing’, allowed the men to eat a little each day rather than have one big blow-out as soon as the food was issued. The problem was that the ‘mossers’ ended up being able to eat whilst their fellow prisoners went hungry. Men whose bellies were crying out for food had to
watch as more careful men ate what was left of their food, eking it out in the hope that it would last until the issue of the next parcel.

Others were able to improvise with the contents. Biscuits were crumbled then covered in melted chocolate to make them more inviting. Flour and raisins were mixed with condensed milk to bake puddings, anything to make a change from the uninviting fare they were usually faced with. One group of copper miners even attempted to liven up their meals with parsley sauce. They bought fresh parsley from their guards and mixed it with porridge oats then poured it over the tinned meat in the Red Cross parcels. The German guards who sold the fresh food to them were part of a racket that helped the prisoners subsist on official rations. At night the guards allowed some Russian prisoners to sneak out of the camp and steal from local vegetable gardens. The Germans then took a share of the loot that they sold on to British prisoners.

Even with food from the Red Cross parcels cooking was not a simple matter of standing at a stove waiting for a pot to boil. With just one stove in each hut there were almost constant queues of hungry men waiting to heat their food. Rotas were established with each ‘combine’ or ‘team’ allotted a time to prepare the food they shared. Using whatever implements they had been able to steal, scrounge or make, the prisoners heated their foods. Tinned meats were fried in margarine or small lumps of lard. Tinned stews were emptied into battered pots and heated through. In some more established camps the prisoners were able to build their own stoves, making them from scrap metal and old tins, hammering the tins together to prepare makeshift chimneys that fed out through windows. The most popular design even included a fan that pumped air into the stove causing the flames to intensify and heat
the food more quickly. Despite such innovations prisoners at many camps had no facilities to keep their utensils clean and post-war investigations by both the British and American armies discovered most of the POWs had been cooking in unsanitary conditions.

Some however had no facilities and were forced to cook the contents of their Red Cross parcels outside. Squatting around small fires dug into holes in the compound, the prisoners heated up whatever food was available. The flames were seldom strong enough to cook complete meals, but food could be heated up just enough to ensure they had something warm to fill their aching bellies. It was not only the shortages of fuel or facilities that kept prisoners from heating up their food. At some work detachments the kitchen facilities were only available at certain times of the day. For men at E538 this meant they could only access the kitchen between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. As a result all the men on the late shift were forced to eat their food uncooked, or to swap anything that needed heating with those on the early shift. Another detachment reported having tea but being without any container they could use to boil water.

When the parcels arrived they allowed the prisoners to share their good fortune. With enough food, if only for a few days, many among them were able to be generous towards the Russian prisoners they worked alongside. Knowing the hunger of their Russian allies they often allowed them to have the British share of midday stews and soups. It was a gesture the starving Russians could understand, most days they all shared hunger, and the spectre of disease and death haunted them all.

Food was not the only necessity in short supply. At some Arbeitskommandos fresh water was simply not available. With neither a tap nor a pump they were forced to collect
water in churns and drag them up to camps for washing and cleaning. However in some cases what they collected was not fit for drinking. For men of one work detachment the only drinking water was what they could buy from canteens, yet they went for six weeks without any pay. With no money they were forced to beg, borrow, steal and scrounge to keep themselves hydrated.

Yet water was not the only drink on their minds. Despite the paucity of rations some prisoners still chose to donate their food for other, less nourishing, uses. Throughout the system of work camps there were men whose knowledge of chemistry allowed them to establish illicit stills in which they concocted evil tasting ‘brews’ of ‘hooch’ that were used to liven up Christmas and New Year celebrations. Most often they used tinned fruit and sugar from Red Cross parcels, a use the ever charitable Swiss organization could hardly have imagined. Others used potatoes ‘appropriated’ from farms or sugar taken from refineries where they worked. Whatever they used the end result was much the same, incredibly strong and often dangerous spirits. Maurice Newey remembered the effect of the ‘jungle juice’ distilled by his comrades: ‘I was offered a drink and took a taste. It shot down my gullet, burnt a hole in my stomach, fired its way down my legs and burnt a hole in my socks and boots. At least that was the sensation. Cor, it was potent stuff. I stuck to the sweet tasting beer after that.’
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However, not all of the fellow prisoners were so careful. After hearing nothing but silence from his mate’s hut Newey went to investigate: ‘Mystifed we went outside to investigate. The lads were draped all over the place, heaving their hearts up. They had stored their jungle juice in galvanised buckets. The stuff was so potent it had taken the galvanising off the buckets. Fortunately they were so sick that they got rid of the poison before it did any real damage. They had
to pour the tainted stuff away. All the wasted food and effort had gone down the drain.’
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Others on work details were able to acquire much safer spirits by trading the contents of Red Cross parcels with local workers to obtain bottles of vodka or schnapps. Those with sufficient funds opted for labelled bottles that had been bottled for human consumption. Those less well off bought dangerous homebrewed spirits, usually prepared in backyard stills. These came in unmarked bottles and ranged from the overstrong to the downright dangerous. Many watered down such drinks, mixing them with water or the lemonade they could sometimes buy in camp canteens. Others simply drank them neat, ignoring the risk to their health and trying to obliterate the misery of captivity.

Not all among them had to rely on trade. Men working in distilleries, even those producing industrial strength spirits, were able to steal alcohol. At one plant the prisoners made small incisions in the rubber pipes used for collecting the spirits. They drained off the strong liquid then diluted it with tea, adding sugar to produce a drink resembling whisky. When one prisoner overindulged in ‘hooch’ and woke up beneath his bunk with a raging headache and having been violently sick, his mates convinced the guards he was unfit for work due to a recurring bout of malaria.

Of course, drinking was not their only indulgence. Leisure was a precious commodity for men who often worked through most hours of daylight. Under official German rules they should all have one complete day off work each week, usually on a Sunday. This, in theory, became the day where their time was their own, when no one could order them to work. Making the most of their free time, they listened to gramophone records or had musical instruments sent by the Red Cross so they could form bands. A few of the more commercially
minded prisoners even requested instruments to be sent from home despite being unable to play anything. Instead they used them for trade on the black market or swapped them for cigarettes. Saturday night dances were organized, with men taking regular dancing partners, during which they used up what little surplus energy they had making their way around the floor in their heavy boots or clogs. Somehow prisoners managed to find time to establish theatres, often converting disused buildings within the camps. Packing cases that had carried Red Cross parcels were dismantled and hammered together to build stages. The contents of Red Cross parcels were used to trade for costumes and materials to construct scenery. Their endeavours were a triumph of ingenuity and improvisation and even men exhausted by long hours of mining summoned up sufficient energy to put on plays and revues, or to organize pantomimes for Christmas. At one work camp the men called their concert party by a highly appropriate name ‘Nena’. It was an anagram for the initials of ‘
Nicht Arbeit Nicht Essen
’ – or ‘no work, no food’ – the perpetual threat made to recalcitrant prisoners.

The entertainments often went beyond just stage shows. Some even organized beauty contests among the inmates, whilst some with artistic talent turned their hand to tattooing their fellow prisoners, often with unit badges. They played card games – usually gambling with their worthless
lagergeld
– darts, chess, draughts and monopoly. They read books sent out from the libraries of the Stalags, sketched, painted and produced handwritten camp newsletters. At one camp for men engaged in road building they even formed a troop of Boy Scouts. Many turned to new pursuits to fill the long hours after they were locked up for the night. Les Allan learnt to play chess in the most unusual circumstances – the aftermath of an unsuccessful escape:

My mucker was in the next cell in the cooler. He asked me if I knew how to play chess. Then he started shouting out the instructions to me. I used a piece of soap to mark a chessboard on the blanket. He told me how many squares I needed and I used bits of paper as the pieces. He shouted out all the moves. By the time I got out after 28 days the first thing I wanted to do was get a Red Cross chess set. So when I played my first game I was in seventh heaven. Chess helped me get through a lot of boring hours, I was able to forget about life. The chess set was the only thing I took with me when we evacuated the camp, I prized it. I still have it to this day.
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Whilst some among the prisoners were involved in such cerebral pursuits much of the entertainment was trivial. In their boredom some resorted to the sort of behaviour expected of schoolboys. They organized raids on each other’s huts, with gangs of men taking on their fellow prisoners in playful fights. The intention was to turf all the men out of a hut and claim a victory. Sometimes mobs would descend on huts with bootpolish and ‘black’ their victims. Others organized group fights, dividing up the combatants between those under 30 and those over. Such incidents were an ideal way for the men to let off steam and express a spontaneity and lust for life impossible during the rigid working days.