21 July 2012 - Glenholm

GillieB here

We left Prague and the Hotel Rott reluctantly. I highly recommend this very well appointed and reasonably priced hotel. It is perfectly situated for the old town and very quiet and extremely comfortable. Staff are very pleasant and helpful and speak English fluently – causing me to feel very humble.

We were chauffeur driven to the Hilton hotel underground car park, collected car and drove up into posh hotel car park. Typed in Gorlitz in Germany into GPS – no luck! So we headed into hotel reception where a young woman said it was actually in Poland ( we knew the town was divided in two by river Neisse ) and gave us spelling for the city in Polish – still no luck when we entered it into GPS. OK – what now? We didn't have a map of Germany!!! Back to see the hotel concierge this time – lovely young Polish man who knew the town and he gave us a small map of Ceska and located Zittau on it – which is near the Polish border an in the area near where we knew Gorlitz to be. He knew the town as Gorlitz and gave us advice re route to take. We entered Zittau in to GPS along with some stern words to the stupid woman who lives inside the device and why doesn't she keep up with border changes etc...and off we finally went.

Most of the way we were on the European Route and it was a lovely drive through countryside that went from rolling terrain with stands of trees to more hills and valleys and woods became denser. We went off at one point to have a drive through some villages. Taking the Hanichem off ramp we headed for Rossau – a charming village and carried on down into a valley toward the settlement of Kriebethal. As we made our ascent up a steep hill, which was clad in dense picturesque foliage and slender trunked trees ,and rounded a bend there was a beautiful castle nestled on the side of the hill! It is called the Krebstein Castle and is obviously a well known, well visited tourist site. Parties of school children were being taken through the site as well as a lot of other people wandering through and around.We popped into a charming café for a coffee in the village on the top of the hill.

After that it was back to the autobahn. Once we arrived at Zittau the signs to Gorlitz were easily followed and we found our accommodation easily using a goggle map Stephen had printed off. Piccobella Pension! We had a large room on ground levels so took the opportunity later in the day to pull out and repack to avoid excess baggage cost from Frankfurt!

Before the battle of the baggage though we walked up into the town of Gorlitz to an information centre. Our quest was to get directions to Stalag VII A. A prisoner of war camp where my father was interred from 1944 – 45, having been transferred from Italian POW camp when Italy 'changed sides”. The woman we spoke to and her colleague knew of the site and we bought a map of German and Polish Gorltiz. They identified the site – known mostly because of the Olivier Messian music centre.

Off we went in our Peugot . The area they had identified was clearly not correct – being a suburb of housing and some recreational areas. It is at this point I would like to thank Terry Crandle and his partner Karen for the advice and information they gave us before we left NZ. Terry's dad , John and others, were instrumental in gathering photos, materials , poetry and accounts of life in the Stalag VIII A camp written by internees. This involved carrying these documents on the forced march in 1945. This was a gruelling and inhumane imperative by the Third Reich.

There are accounts of conditions and what the men endured – the recounting and reading of these accounts is always edited by the author for the sake of their audience – the reality is always much harsher. Once in London John Crandle and other ex prisoners compiled and organised the publishing of a book called 'Interlude'. Men had previously signed up for and bought copies while in the Stalag – lists were compiled and in due course copies were sent out to these men. One of these men was my father – Joseph Ernst Caldwell – known in the army as 'Snow'. He was extremely fair headed. Fair minded too apparently as he was the quarter master for his barrack . I say apparently as he died when I was 2 years of age. My mother took good care of this document and now it is mine.

So – armed with my precious copy of Interlude and the information from Terry and Karen I was sure we needed to head out into the country side. This we did. This first road we took was obviously not the right one though we did find the German equivalent of 'allotments' ! OK – back to the round about and take the main road – bingo! In short order we found the site. 

Sign at the entrance to the Stalag VIIIA site.

Memorial at the camp

The site was laid out as Terry had described –a central track with side tracks leading off it. The track / road is covered with some gravel but big stones protrude regularly and there had been some rain so there were many large puddles across the surface of the road. This is not a well drained site – more about that later.

At the entrance to the camp there is a large memorial. There is also a plaque where there is a plan of the site – annotated to show where kitchens, latrines, barracks, chapel, library etc were situated. As we walked the road there were plaques that further described each site in a variety of languages. Today trees have made the left hand side of the road their home – they are slender, tall trees and winds whisper or whip ( according to the weather) through their branches. The ground, uneven because of remnants of drains and barracks / building foundations, is covered with grass – some ferns grow here and there. On the right ,as we walked through the camp, the ground is covered by lower growing scrub and wild flowers abound. This is more uneven ground. The buildings have been demolished – within the last 20 years – but it is possible still to find the foundations should you brave the prickly and non prickly under growth.

Around the middle of the camp we reached the plaque that commentated the centre where Olivier Messian completed and performed for the first time his “ Ode to the end of time”. Turning 180 degrees and looking out over the scrub I knew I had found the site of my father's barrack. Grateful thanks to Terry again.

This was a moment in time for me.

I saw pieces of red brick – sun dried brick – that I knew had been used to build the barracks. No full bricks from my father's barrack are left so – knowing this was where his barrack had been I popped the fragment into my pocket. ( now well scrubbed and in my luggage – hopefully to come home with us)

I knew my father loved violets. He often gave bunches of them to my mother. While we were in the town of Gorlitz I bought an African violet plant ( no violets available and they wouldn't survive) and carried it to Stalag VIII A . The area where my father's barracks had been was now scrub land so I decided to plant the violets opposite the site, beside the rusty memorial to Olivier Messian amongst the trees. Having clearing a small area of the grass that grew there I had nothing with which to dig a hole so – taking a long stick that was lying on the ground – I began to break the surface of the earth. That took a little effort but then, to my surprise, soon my stick sank easily down into the earth. OK – the reason for all the ditches between the barracks became immediately clear. The camp site is/was a bog!!

Violets planted by Gillian

Once I had I planted the violet I sought pieces of bricks from the barracks that were around to surround it. I then sunk the digging stick I had used beside the violets. I hope the violet plant survives – I guess the chances of that in the soggy soil are limited – and I will never know. However I am grateful that my father did survive this Stalag ( so is Stephen apparently!!) and also the previous PoW camps where he had been held captive in Italy. He he did not describe these camps much to my mother and there is only one reference to them in one of his letters that I have. I do know though from my reading that Italian camps were horrific – second only to the Japanese.In the inscription at the front of Interlude he described Stalag VIII A as his best time in captivity. Having read the book and the accounts of the camp I shudder!

As we went we were reading plaques. When the road made a division to the south I told Stephen I would like to go down it to the Russian prisoners grave yard. A wee discussion ensued about the location of this site.

Finally I persuaded him and we tramped on and soon found the cemetery. The Russians were imprisoned away from the other prisoners, little food provided and the ground around their 'shelters' was bare earth as they had eaten all the grass. 16,000 men are buried in this cemetery!!! Interlude recounts endeavours by the NZers, Australians and Brits to send contents of their Red Cross food parcels through to them – mostly thwarted by the guards .

As I walked into the cemetery a prickle of goose bumps ran up my spine and a shudder – Stephen had no such sensation. It is a beautiful place but not a happy place and I was glad to leave it.

The memorial in the Russian cemetary

Back to the main track again, with much to think about – we walked to the outskirts of the camp. As we had been walking we were already aware that there were still fence posts evident beyond the scrub. Now - arriving at the edge of the camp we gasped. There, standing sombrely as sentinels of the past, remain the posts that held the wires that interred my father along with thousands of other young men in the prime of their life. Young men caged as wild animals – that is probably how their potential was seen.

Remains of the camp fence

We walked on – we saw more of the first and second line defences. The fence posts are evocative and affected us both.

As Stephen explored these and worked out camp perimeters I went into a small crumbling building that was obviously related to administration – no roof but walls with some tiling remained. Tiles!! In a POW camp!?

We walked back through the camp – wondering how 10,000 plus men could have been confined never mind live for so long in such a small area.

I have no idea how to end this account - All I can say is at a personal level to my father is ' thank you for all you endured and for managing to survive and return home intact – in all senses of the word'.