Stalag XXA Torun Enforced March from Poland by Stephen Wynn

Author:Stephen Wynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2020-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Monday 5 March 1945

Dawn found us tired, hungry, frozen and suffering horribly from cramp and poor blood circulation, but still hurtling along the roads towards the entrainment point.

We had left the open country behind us now and were passing through villages and towns of considerable size. No one had the vaguest idea where we were. At about halfpast seven our lorry, crowning touch, broke down completely and we had to transfer to another which had no hood or shelter of any kind. We finished the journey in this mobile refrigerator. Luckily, however, it was only for an hour or so.

At 8.30 we entered a large town, drove slowly through the streets, past a large freight yard where we could see trains and hundreds of freight cars busily shunting back and forth. This was a welcome sight. Finally we turned in to a driveway, passed through some large iron gates and pulled up on a huge parade ground. We had arrived.

How I ever got my limbs working again, I don’t know. When I crawled off the truck violent shooting pains stabbed through my legs as the blood forced its way through again and I nearly fell to the ground, for my legs almost refused to support me. But some intense stamping and flapping of arms soon got the circulation started once more and we made our way in to the billets to which we had been assigned.

We learned that this was indeed the railhead; a town called Wreznia, Wreschen in German. We were in what had been a vast military barracks and was now being used as a collecting point for all nationalities of released prisoners of war, British, American, French, Belgian and Russian. There were literally thousands of them here, some of them had been waiting for weeks. But we understood that we British and the Americans who had come with us from Ciechocinek were to make up a detachment which would be the next to leave. We certainly hoped so.

We were extremely hungry, so we made a hot drink of sorts and had a bite to eat from our meagre rations. This was soon finished and we squared up our kit and settled down to wait for further orders.

We waited until half-past four in the afternoon when we were called on parade and told that we would not be going off until tomorrow morning. So back to the billet we went to make ourselves as comfortable as possible until then. We managed to scrounge some coal, got straw in and spread it on the floor, so we shall be fairly warm. By contrast to the truck it is a heaven of comfort to stretch out and have a bit of warmth.

Bob boiled up some water on the stove and made a drink of hot Marmite which we had together with some dry toast. The Russians gave us no food whatsoever. But we were too exhausted to worry much about anything else and we soon collapsed on to the straw, drew our blankets over us and pounded the ear.

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