12
The newly arrived POWs knew none of this. They didn’t even know what a Slovenian was. All they knew was that they were in a city that looked German. It also sounded German, thanks to the Nazis’ decree that only German be spoken in public. Their first contact with the new reality was the Stalag XVIIID processing centre, the Zollschuppenlager (customs shed camp), which had been set up in the old inspection point for railway freight on the Yugoslav–Austrian border, another grim, bug-infested building with a small yard ringed with barbed wire. The prisoners would sleep on the floor of the customs shed.
The camp authorities made a good impression with an arrival meal – soup with actual meat! Wal seemed to have an iron stomach, even after the journey, and managed three servings.1 The prisoners were then gathered for parade. XVIIID’s commandant was Colonel Ulbrich of the 891st Landesschützen Battalion. ‘Welcome to our Fatherland!’ he began, with a German soldier translating his words into English. ‘If you are good, you will be well looked after. If you are wicked, you will be punished. If you try to escape, you will be shot!’2 The prisoners hoped that last bit was a bluff, but the speech put them in no mood to cooperate. Camp bureaucrats went along the lines, taking names and details. Many prisoners sabotaged the count by slipping back to give a second, false identity.3
A routine was soon established. Colonel Ulbrich paraded the prisoners every morning until processing was complete. The guards would goosestep into position and load rifles on command. Thanks to a guard dubbed ‘Horseface’, this was usually a slapstick comedy. Horseface would never get it right. His goosesteps would be out of time; he’d fumble his ammunition or jam the bolt. One morning when ordered to load, Horseface stood motionless. His superior bellowed, ‘Why haven’t you loaded?’
‘Sir, I did it before I arrived,’ Horseface replied.4 The crowd burst out laughing, and poor Horseface was sent off for a reprimand. After a few days, processing was completed to Ulbrich’s satisfaction, and each man received an aluminium tag with his prisoner of war number. Ralph’s was 5204. Then they were deloused, which was a major morale boost. Powdered down before a hot shower, most were clean for the first time in months. Their clothes were steamed clean (and free of bugs) too.
Afterwards, the POWs were transferred next door: Stalag XVIIID proper, an unremarkable collection of buildings centred on an old Austro-Hungarian cavalry barracks. XVIIID’s population was in flux. Preceding Ralph’s group were thousands of French, Belgian, and Yugoslav prisoners; then a few hundred mostly Australian prisoners taken in northern Greece had arrived. By the end of July, Stalag XVIIID held over 4,000 British Empire prisoners.5 It was not a permanent prison but a staging post for cheap labour. The inmates would be transferred to smaller camps, near places of work.
Under the Geneva Convention, officers were to have segregated camps and not be put to work, but the imprisoning power could make use of enlisted men.6 Almost the entire young male German population was in the armed forces and, since the Nazis rejected the British and Soviet model of women as heavy industry workers, the Reich looked to its prisoners for a workforce.
Processing POWs into Arbeitskommando (labour battalions and sub camps) took time. In the meantime there was little for inmates to do: no recreational facilities, no books, no letters from home. After the initial feast the food was awful, rations consisting of two ladles of cabbage or potato soup a day. Twice a week, a loaf of bread would be given to share between five. To drink was mint tea or ersatzkaffee (replacement coffee), which was ground roast barley or acorns designed to mimic the taste of coffee.7 Taken together, it was enough to sustain the men, but not restore their battered health. Food was the subject of most conversations; so many had starved almost to the point of death in Greece and on the train.
Many kindly locals tried to ease the prisoners’ suffering. Well-dressed local men and women would approach the gate and ask to give food or cigarettes, which was a grave risk for a small mercy.8 Some prisoners started to become aware that they were in a land under occupation. Next to XVIIID was the ‘Slavic Section’, where Slovenians targeted by the German Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo (secret state police) filled the compound. Some threw a ‘V for victory’ sign from behind their bars when they caught the eye of a British prisoner. They had it even worse than the POWs. Some would be released. Others were shot, or sent to concentration camps.9
There were no boisterous men in Stalag XVIIID, and for some the meagre diet and a hot shower were not enough to keep their sanity. They survived in body but died in spirit. In those first months, some prison wraiths roamed the camp. They didn’t wash, eat, or talk much. They were long since separated from friends, so no one knew their names. Instead they had gained nicknames: Ghosty, Conduit, Creeping Jesus.10 One was suffering from pneumonia, but by the time the guards came to take him to the hospital, he was delirious and believed he was being snatched from his mother’s arms, and screamed out for her. The man died a few days later.11 Few of these men survived long. After the war, few chose to remember those poor souls had even existed.
Others had their mental strength tested by ghastly work assignments. One group of prisoners had to grave-rob. Marched to Maribor Cemetery, they were set to disinterring the dead. Then German soldiers plundered the bodies of wedding rings, necklaces, and tooth fillings.12 With such options, if someone came recruiting for an ordinary work assignment, there were always volunteers. Wal, Ralph, and Gerry volunteered for an Arbeitskommando of 150 men, working at the village of Ruše for a firm contracted to build a road west along the river Drava. Conditions were poor, and the work was gruelling. Their accommodation was a rotting barn filled with bugs and lice, and in exchange for all their hard work they were promised ‘all the potatoes you can eat’. Spuds came by the wagon load, but their employers underestimated demand: the prisoners devoured every potato and asked for more. When none came, they stripped orchards of fruit and pillaged corn from the fields.13
Ralph did not share this plunder. He had dysentery, which had followed him since Corinth. Then he was struck down by a recurrence of malaria and spent weeks from July into August in the camp hospital. The doctors here, Captain Michelides and Major George Thomson, the only officers in XVIIID, saved Ralph and countless others.14 Rested and beginning to recover, Ralph returned to work a few weeks later, bringing with him all the ‘griff’, the latest dubious camp tales – the Soviet Air Force had bombed Graz, the British Army had landed in France but had been thrown back into the sea again, the Red Cross had begun sending aid to the camps . . . Only the last rumour was not believed.15
A map of the Maribor region in the northeastern part of Slovenia, showing the location of Stalag XVIIID and the railways.
Map 7. Maribor region
Ralph returned to work just as the road job was ending. The employers had had enough of them; not only had the prisoners eaten everything, but they had also achieved little – British Empire prisoners had an excellent talent for sabotage. The company begged for prisoners of other nationalities.
Back at Maribor, the crew learned that one bit of griff was true. Red Cross parcels had arrived! The allocation was one parcel between two men every week; later, this became one per man per week. They contained luxuries: tinned beef, sausage, sardines, cheese, sugar, dried fruit, margarine, tea! Most valuable of all were chocolate, soap, and coffee, a holy trinity already in short supply in Europe that fetched a fat profit on the black market.16
Better yet came the first contact with home. Their next of kin now had news of the prisoners’ survival, so a postcard was issued to every man for immediate dispatch.17 The prisoners were ecstatic, celebrating, as Ralph put it, ‘the world’s mightiest mercy organization, which recognized no barrier of race or creed in bringing aid and comfort to those who need it’.18 The gratitude was so intense that many men became lifelong supporters of the Red Cross. At least one, Donald Luckett, was so moved that he arranged for much of his salary to be donated to the Red Cross during his captivity.19