The Long Journey Part Four

Michael Whiteman’s Graphic Account of His Days as a P.O.W. in World War Two.

Part Four: January 1944

Could the end be in sight?

So came January and towards the end a party was sent out to Sosnowiec. It was an iron works, electric plant plus it had its own coal mine, making coke. We were pulling down two areas for re-building. One morning we all refused to go to work, saying that they were making us work too hard, as we stood on parade the German in charge with a guard counted ten men, me amongst them, put us up against the wall – I thought “Iv’e been here before”. Threatened to shoot us if we did not go to work. Our Sergeant in charge said “OK lads, we’ll go back to work and see if we can get it sorted”. This we did to our advantage, early in May we were seeing train loads of political or Jewish POW s  going to Auschwitz. Poor devils. We used to wave to them as our camp was close to the line. We did know what was happening to them because the Polish workers we worked alongside told us, they all seemed to know but kept it to themselves. Continue reading The Long Journey Part Four

The Long Journey Part Four

 

Michael Whiteman’s Graphic Account of His Days as a P.O.W. in World War Two.

Part Four: January 1944

Could the end be in sight?

So came January and towards the end a party was sent out to Sosnowiec. It was an iron works, electric plant plus it had its own coal mine, making coke. We were pulling down two areas for re-building. One morning we all refused to go to work, saying that they were making us work too hard, as we stood on parade the Continue reading The Long Journey Part Four