25
The first big snowfall of 1944 triggered wild scenes on the worksite. The prisoners leapt from the railway to pelt snowballs at their fellows. Kit Carson, who’d cultivated a reputation as a quiet, serious man, took no part. He muttered, ‘If the other chaps want to have some fun, they may do so . . . I have neither the inclination nor the energy.’1 But he could not escape the crossfire. A snowball hit Kit square between the legs. He was enraged, reaching for snow to retaliate. Sometimes guards, foremen, or passing civilians would be hit, and then join in themselves. The crew’s merry attitude led them to be affectionately dubbed ‘Churchill Kinder’ by their guards.2
It was not all so happy, though. Since November Allied bombers had been seen overhead, flying north. Initially they brought cheer to the prisoners, then, on 17 January Maribor was targeted for the first time. The men were resting in the barracks when air-raid sirens sounded. The guards rushed to open the wire gates and take the prisoners and themselves to an air-raid shelter.3 It was an eerie moment for the prisoners; the sounds of bombs and bombers were their first ‘contact’ with comrades in arms in years – yet if those same comrades struck their targets true, the prisoners would be killed. Their shelter was not hit, but by the time the raid was over, fifty-three of Maribor’s residents were dead.4
The mood soured everywhere. German soldiers were beginning to accept that the war was going badly for them. Maribor’s residents found their own homes and lives were in the firing line. For the first time since arriving in Maribor, the prisoners were in mortal danger. Nothing could be done about the bombs, but something could be done about winter malaise. Though conditions were good at 1046GW, suicides were common in other Arbeitskommandos. Captivity and boredom bred depression. A solution had to be found.
First, a library was established. Supplemented with local purchases and packages from families, the bulk came from a special Red Cross programme headquartered at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.5 Then, Gross came again to their aid with an incredible offer to Ralph: money from camp wages with black-market sweeteners could fund various excursions. Each prisoner generated a modest income, but everyone knew it was unlikely that the German Reich would ever pay out the money – even less likely that Reichsmarks would be worth anything by the war’s end if Germany lost. Gross’s suggestion therefore would ‘liberate’ these funds before it was too late. The first of his schemes was a trip to a photo studio. A couple of gifted Slovenian women ran Jana Foto in Maribor, and The Crow and Gross arranged a booking for the whole camp. The men assembled one Saturday in groups of six, had a photo taken, and copies were printed to be mailed to the prisoners’ families. If someone desired an individual photo that could be purchased separately.6 The men grouped themselves by nationality, hoping their families could share copies. Eric Edwards enquired as to the cost of a Leica camera: 5,000 Reichsmarks was the answer. As the POWs were paid in pfennigs, this was an eye-watering sum that even black-market trade would struggle to overcome.
Gross followed this up with an offer even more expensive than a Leica. ‘Herr Vertrauensmann, I understand your Herr Laws is quite the pianist. Would you like to buy a grand piano?’7 The Crow was rarely short of words, but this took even him aback. How much does it cost? he asked. 10,000 Reichsmarks, was the reply. Ralph gulped and ran his arithmetic: that was a third of their total earnings, a fair chunk of which had already been spent on vegetables, photos, and alcohol.*8 Herr Vertrauensmann didn’t even bother to consult the other prisoners on this potential purchase, only Leslie Laws. Leslie was delighted with the prospect and went with Ralph and Gross to an apartment in central Maribor, where they found a Bechstein concert grand piano. It had been three years since Leslie’s fingers had touched ivory. He tried some scales and played jazz tunes.
Ralph, meanwhile, surveyed the apartment and chatted to the seller; the German owner had done well from the occupation, though Ralph wasn’t given the details. By the look of things, all his belongings were now being packed up in quite a hurry. Ralph learned that the owner was moving to Salzburg. Any suggestion that he was in haste created noticeable tension. While he played, Leslie kept an ear on the conversation. Both he and Ralph were convinced there was an obvious explanation for the flight. The Slovenians were getting bolder by the day; if Germany were defeated, those who had profited from the occupation could expect no mercy.
To Leslie’s delight the piano was a fine instrument and was purchased. Soon the band were starting to sound like a serious jazz outfit! However, the other prisoners were taken aback to learn of the purchase, and that everyone would be contributing. It became the subject of gags to Ralph’s face and behind his back. ‘If you buy a car for each of us, will we have to pay for it?’ Or on the worksite: ‘A bit of work now, chaps, think of the piano!’9
Gross also offered grand days out every Sunday, which proved universally popular. They would begin at the local cinema, known before the occupation as Grajski Kino. The film would be followed by trips to the tavern and an afternoon’s drinking. Alcohol was in short supply all over Europe, but not in Štajerska – here copious amounts of almost every kind of alcohol were produced. The Laško brewery lay not far from Maribor, and as Allied bombing intensified, the beer had a hard time moving out of the region.10 Someone had to drink it all. There were many teetotallers in camp, and after the film, the prisoners would split into drinkers and non-drinkers, with one group heading to a tavern and the other to a cafe.11 Many of the other Arbeitskomanndos were also let out on Sunday. Some would take trips to see old friends in other camps, often farms, and drink and gossip the day away.12
At the cinema, few could follow the German dialogue, but it was a pleasant distraction and warmer than in barracks. Audiences in the German Reich had long since lost their taste for war films. Like the prisoners cheering Fair Em, they craved cheerful escapism. Musical comedies such as Gasparone and Der Weisse Traum were shown, and eagerly consumed. Less cheery were the twenty minutes of newsreel, Die Deutsche Wochenschau, before every film. Most, local and POW alike, waited outside, smoking, while the ‘advertisements’ played, but for those who hoped to glean some information on the war, the Wochenschau was useful. Leslie and Ralph paid attention, as the last ten minutes were always devoted to the fighting. The newsreel of the second week of February 1944 was particularly enlightening. It showed Anglo-American troops attacking German lines south of Rome. German forces in the east were retreating: a map of Ukraine showed the front line had been pushed 1,000 kilometres back from Moscow. German sappers were filmed blowing bridges and railways while foot soldiers were digging trenches in the frozen ground.13 Ralph and Leslie had seen this kind of desperate defence before, by Anzac troops in Greece. They knew what it meant: the Germans were crumbling in the face of the Soviet advance. The newsreel added fuel to their desire to escape, though neither knew the other’s plans. That would change at post-cinema tavern drinks a few weeks later.
That day the pub bustled with prisoners; the local patrons had adjusted to the new reality and the barmaids did their best to avoid the lecherous advances of some prisoners. The general mood was festive, but Ralph wasn’t. The show was over, the snows thawing, the tides of war turning, and yet he was still a prisoner. Leslie sighted his creative partner in the corner and brought fresh drinks. Ralph reached a hand into a coat pocket and produced the day’s Marburger Zeitung. ‘They Wanted to “Liberate” Štajerska’, ran the headline – ‘The End of a Bandit Division’.
The article referred to the three weeks of fighting it had taken German forces to ‘defeat’ the 14th Division, claiming the Partisan division had been wiped out.14 But to the two POWs this German interest in the Partisans meant the threat the resistance now posed was very credible. For the first time, they debated escape plans. Leslie was surprised Ralph had any. He appreciated the conditions Ralph had created in the camp, but after Eric Davis and his mates made a break for it, he’d assumed Ralph was content with the quiet life.15 In truth, memories of Corinth, Thessaloniki, and above all the customs shed meant Ralph would never be content with sitting idle. The pair revealed to each other their previous escape attempts and agreed to find a way to contact the Partisans.