Stan Lambert (I/275) sent me a copy of his memoirs as
a POW.
Aerial view of Stalag IVB
My most vivid memories of our barracks were of the nights
in them. There was just room for all the exhausted men to lie down
in the unheated building. We lay in groups of three to preserve
warmth, and arranged outer garments and old German shelter halves
over and under us. We were only beginning to learn from the British
the fine art of improvising in a prison hut. Very soon we learned to
pull our tortured feet close to us because some dysentery victim was
always staggering through the darkness toward the door trampling
over frost-bitten and trench-foot-afflicted feet. I believe I have
known no pain greater than that suffered for ten minutes following
the mauling of one's frozen feet by a stampeding, dysenteried P.O.W
Older hands at the game would have known to nest down as far from
the door as possible. We actually had no choice, coming in as we did
at night to an already crowded barracks.
Very early in our stay we were processed through a shower
and delousing unit common to German prisons. There bare brick and
stone structures had a waiting room where we completely disrobed,
leaving our boots stashed in the room, but tying our garments all in
one bundle to be sent through a steam delouser. Two things were
luxurious about the whole procedure. One was the hot shower where we
could observe our flattening bellies but still muscular limbs, and
let the warm streams of water splatter over our blue frost-bitten
feet. The other was picking up our bundles of steaming clothes after
shivering stark naked for a half hour in the waiting room. It was
fortunate that one did not know until later how similar the
procedure was to the gas chamber executions of the Jews.
The first day or two in the open air of IV-B convinced me
of the drabness of the place. The sun seldom shone and the sky
maintained a perpetual Baltic grayness. Very little snow was on the
ground. The only things on the flat horizons were the endless rows
of squat barracks in most directions and a thin row of trees across
a flat field which lay beyond the nearest edge of the Stalag. The
field had been fall-seeded for it had a solid though short cover of
dull green small grain, probably rye. Every day a workman came into
the camp to pump liquid from a great open urinal near our barracks.
It was hand-pumped into a horse-drawn tank wagon. This we could see
being spread as liquid fertilizer in the fields beyond the fence.
Thus, as the protein left our shrinking bodies it was pumped onto
German fields as nitrogen fertilizer. I was impressed with the
macabre quality of German efficiency in using their dwindling
resources.
On the second or third day in IV-B a large number of us
Americans were marched to another portion of the camp to await more
processing. The Germans left much of the routine of this to some of
the older British P.O.Ws who could have been in this Stalag for a
period of years. I recall an Englishman pacing slowly along in front
of our group making a partially successful attempt at raising our
morale. "This camp is near Muhlberg about eighty miles south of
Berlin," he said. "The Russians have 'Jerry' on the run and are only
185 miles east of Berlin." His clipped British accent and confident
air did raise our morale a few notches, and I personally was to have
genuine respect for most of the British P.O.Ws I would encounter.
Our processing continued. We were photographed and
numbered, much as a convict, and issued a P.O.W. tag bearing the
number. This we wore like a dog tag. British prisoners gave us
typhus shots and supervised the filling out of forms. One form
question was, "When were you captured?" I refused to fill out this
and perhaps another question or two. An Englishman checking papers
called out my name. "You have failed to complete several blanks," he
said. "I already gave my name, rank and serial number, I replied.
"Isn't that enough?" "Jerry can always find unpleasant ways of
finding out what he wants to know," he told me. I completed the
form. "Besides," I rationalized to myself, "what good would it do
'Jerry' back here in IV-B if he did find out when I was captured?"
I came from a family that nearly always went to church on
the Sabbath. This habit I had tried to maintain through training in
the army, but certainly not out of piety. My father had innumerable
ways of puncturing piety whether it was in his own family or
otherwise. But looking for a church on Sunday seemed a natural thing
to do. So on this Sunday in late January of 1945 another chap and I
sought out a chapel located in the back of a building behind some
British barracks. I didn't really expect anything to occur there
which I would long remember. But a bony British padre speaking to
his small despondent congregation reminded us that all our striving,
our efforts on our own behalf could come to naught. He held up a
spare, thin, knit rug from the floor near the pulpit and said, "We
are like this rug, God can see right through us." Then he recited to
us a verse from an old hymn.
"Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill thy law's demands.
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow.
All for sin could not atone
Thou must save and Thou alone."
It is hard to forget truth spoken in a place like that.
Communication with the outside world was evident when one
visited the British barracks. The "Limeys" had pajamas, towels, a
few toilet articles, and some utensils which they had received from
home or had improvised. Many of these fellows had been prisoners of
war since the 1942 days of Rommel's success in North Africa. They
had spent many rough months earlier in their captivity especially
under the "Eye-Tyes" (Italians). Their lot, however, had decidedly
improved as they were located in the more permanent prison camps in
Germany. Connections with home through the International Red Cross
had become common, though slow, and frequent delivery of Red Cross
food parcels from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, or the
United States were made. The intent of the Red Cross was to make a
parcel delivery to every prisoner each week.' When they were
successful a prisoner could live tolerably well. Such connections by
the Red Cross with prisoners of the Japanese, I am told, were next
to impossible, for the whole Japanese effort, as well as Hitler's,
was international banditry. The amazing thing was the facade of
humane treatment which the Germans partially maintained toward their
captives from the West, while they were systematically destroying
their own Jews and sorely neglecting their Russian captives...
