After sticking our toes in the Baltic Sea, we
returned to the site of Stalag Luft 1 to have time to record it in our minds.
Taking advantage of the interesting food in a Barth grocery store, we had a
celebration picnic on the site. It was after all an true miracle that our
father survived his stay at Stalag Luft 1.
The three triangles of trees and the continuous
cooing of the cranes provided a wonderful setting. It was a joyous occasion
that we were able to come to Germany. We wished all of our family could have been
there with us.
After lunch, we walked around the area where our
father’s South Compound barrack was located. Trudging through the tall grasses,
we found the remnants of bricks where a building might have been. However, the
Germans constructed the barracks out of wood so they could survey underneath to
prevent tunneling and escapes. There was nothing left of the barracks.
We drove a ways north of there and found some old
concrete foundations. Our imaginations went wild as we stopped and explored the
area: Nazi buildings aptly covered with vines and moss. And then we drove south
of the South Compound and found more old foundations. We surmised that this was
the location of the infamous Flak School.
We had found this information on the kiosk at the
site:
“Geneva Convention: The construction of a
prisoner-of-war camp in the immediate area of military property, like the
‘Flakschool’ (anti-aircraft-gunnery-training-school) in Barth, is a violations
of the Geneva Agreement of Prisoners of War from 1929. Article 9 states, “A
prisoner of war may never be brought to an area, where he would be exposed to
the first of the combat area or be used through his presence there, to protect
certain points or areas from bombardment/shooting. The County Council Barth in
Vorpommem (West Pomerania) was the location of two garrisons, aerodrome and
anti-aircraft school, and several important armaments factories. Stalag Luft 1
was regularly controlled by representatives of the Swiss Protecting Power. The
International Red Cross and the YMCA did send help packages.”
You’ll read more in my father’s diary of his exploration
of this area as the war was over. We were glad that these buildings were left
in ruins as was the Nazi effort. We returned to our hotel with pockets full of
bricks, rocks and remnants of bomb debris to take home as reminders.
All the time we were exploring the site of Stalag
Luft 1, we could see the church tower. Here is a quote from Candy Kyler Brown
in her book, “What I Never Told You,” about her father’s (John Kyler) stay at
Stalag Luft 1:
“The most striking view in Barth, to me, is the
beautiful old church, the St. Marien Church . . . It was astounding to me to look at this steeple from the same area my
father had. What a feeling it had to be for those men to view this house
of worship from behind barbed wire – this beautiful steeple and this beautiful
old church and there they were as prisoners doing the best they could to practice
any sort of religion. There is just some tranquility that is felt gazing
at this landmark and its appearance may have served to provide peacefulness to
those captive bodies but free minds.”
Thank you, Candy. I don’t
think I could have explained this better. I wonder what the Germans at the camp
thought as they looked at the church tower.
The morning we left Barth, we walked down the street in front of the hotel
to where the airport had been. Our father had walked this road on May 14, 1945 as part of Operation Revival (and several other times as well) to the place from where he had been flown to freedom.
We also explored the site where the concentration camp had been. How horrible
that evidently not one person had survived. The labor camp has been open from
November 1943 to April 1945 and was a branch of the infamous Ravensbruck, the
largest concentration camp for women, located about 50 miles north of
Berlin.
