Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
PoW and Refugee Camps, UK
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Wednesday, 30th January 2008
Hi does anyone have any info re the above?
The village I grew up in had a small camp which housed, at different times, Poles, Germans and Italians. What happened when WW2 ended? I know some stayed - a German and a Pole worked on the ame farm, married local girls and brought up families in adjacent farm cottages. Presumably the majority went home. Is there any record of these camps and their inmates? -
Message 2
Posted by mathsmal (U1578931) on Wednesday, 30th January 2008
Hi
Many POW camps in the UK first held Italian POWs captured in North Africa (many of the Germans were sent to the US). After D Day, the increased number of German POWs captured, and the capitulation of the Italians led to a growth in the number of POW camps and the replacement of Italian POWs with Germans. The majority of Germans were sent home by 1946/47, but some were kept until 1948. Some of the camps were used to house Displaced Persons, many from Poland or other countries now under Soviet control. Some ex-POWs stayed in Britain, normally if their home town was in East Germany or if they had no home or family to return to. Others married girls and settled down.
English Heritage did a report on camps - -
Message 3
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Thursday, 31st January 2008
Thank you!
Interestingly the report to which you provided a link lists 2 camps in Herefordshire, neither of which is the one in the Herefordshire village I grew up in!
A housing development was built on much of the site in the 1980s. The camp chapel remained in use for many years - and maybe still is, I'll try and find out next time I'm in the vicinity - as the local RC Church. -
Message 4
Posted by dancingevahannah (U7408712) on Sunday, 3rd February 2008
hi there was a pow camp in bridgend south wales u could contact the welsh tourist board or bridgend council or perhaps the national trust, there is a story that there was an escape from the camp, a lot of the prisoners stayed in wales
hope this helps -
Message 5
Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 4th February 2008
The English Heritage report is POW camps so I think it does not always include internment camps and the camps used after the war for Displaced Persons.
I am just reading a book about POW Camp 165 at Watten, like many others it was built during WWII as a military camp and only became a POW camp at the end of the war.
There is a Polish village near Pwllheli which used an old airfield after WWII. Many people settled there and it still exists as sheltered housing I believe.
I think there was another near Wrexham because there is a large number of Polish burials in the cemetery with a guide to them on the notice board in the car park.
MB -
Message 6
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Monday, 4th February 2008
Just wanted to say "thanks" to both eva and JMB for your information.
Regards,
Frank -
Message 7
Posted by jinks-cider-stash (U7847019) on Tuesday, 5th February 2008
Just to affirm what dancingevahannah said, there is indeed the ruins of a POW camp in Bridgend called Island Farm.
If you google this it will give you a great website detailing the prisoners held there (some of which were Generals and Field Marshals), pictures and info on when 70 POW tunneled out (which ended in a high speed motorcycle chase across Wales, the culmination of which was a failed dare-devil leap into Anglesey). -
Message 8
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 5th February 2008
There was a very large POW camp for Italian prisoners on Orkney. Many of those interned there stayed on after the war, and there is still a significant Italian community on Orkney.
For those who have never been, Orkney is a truly magical place and well worth visiting. The Italian prisoners built a cathedral from Nissen huts. It is still there, and is a living memorial to man's ingenuity. It's a truly awe inspiring site, and to my mind, more impressive than any cathedral I have ever been to.
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Message 9
Posted by MB (U177470) on Tuesday, 5th February 2008
There is of course Eden Camp in Yorkshire which is open as a museum
Possibly one of the best preserved British POW camp is at Comrie in Perthshire because it continued to be used by the army until recently and has now been sold to the local community.
MB -
Message 10
Posted by GrumpyBOUDICA (U10528800) on Wednesday, 6th February 2008
The Isle of Man had P.O.W camps WW1 WW11 GB
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Message 11
Posted by mathsmal (U1578931) on Thursday, 7th February 2008
Hi
Here are a couple of good sites regarding German POW camps:
www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk
www.kriegsgefangen.de -
Message 12
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Friday, 8th February 2008
Interesting sites, Thanks!
No mention though of the camp in my birth village. However the Island Farm site provided some tips on researching information which I can make good use of. -
Message 13
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Friday, 8th February 2008
Grumpy B
werent the isle of man camps internment camps ?
B&Bs surrounded by barbed wire !!
st -
Message 14
Posted by MB (U177470) on Friday, 8th February 2008
Several POW camps are listed on the Isle of Man in the English Heritage list. They could be the internment camps or perhaps some of those could have become POW camps post war. Many army camps became POW camps late in the war as the need for them increased.
MB -
Message 15
Posted by Polwanderer (U1734477) on Sunday, 10th February 2008
My father came to this country after the war, through the Polish Resettlement Corps and I have done some research.
He stayed at several EVW (European Volunteer Workers) hostels around the country while working here from around 1948. One was in West Wratting in Cambridgeshire, at Lowton near Leigh in Lancashire,and Aberaman near Aberdare in South Wales. From what I understand by this time they weren't camps but simply places for displaced people to stay while they worked. The mining and agricultural industries particularly needed workers so they were invited to come.
Part of the hostel at Lowton (Scotia South) still exists as part of the town's Civic Halls (the cinema I think).
These hostels appear to have been quite common and may have existed throughout the war.
You could try the National Archives website as they have been a great help to me. -
Message 16
Posted by j66kos (U14763584) on Tuesday, 25th January 2011
Hi
My father was also at the EVW hostel in West Wratting in April 1948. Do you have any info on it please.
Regards
Joy [Personal details removed by Moderator] -
Message 17
Posted by VoiceOfReason (U14405333) on Tuesday, 25th January 2011
Pretty sure we only had internment camps on the IOM not POW camps
I don't think many internees stayed on but there are a few publications written by internees or their families regarding their time on the island
Most were housed in hotels or holiday camps as far as I am aware and there is a good permanent exhibition at the Manx Museum that has many artifacts from that time as well as a fair amount of information -
Message 18
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Wednesday, 26th January 2011
As a kid I got to know a German PoW in Lancashire. They were housed in a disused mill in Bury, but in 1945 (after the European war was over) they were brought in lorries every day to a building site near my home - digging ditches and foundations. The news quickly went round my junior school and groups of us bought Woodbine cigarettes to swap with the Gerries for badges, medals, shoulder-straps etc.
All highly illegal of course. "Fraternisation" with the Bury PoWs put a couple of nurses in jail - for swapping letters with them. But the two British Army guards never noticed as we little spivs haggled with the Germans over the fence. I bought a tiny German dictionary to facilitate the transactions, but of course at age 10 I'd no idea about grammar or pronunciation.
The chap I eventually gave the dictionary to had been captured in Normandy, and after being at Bury was transferred to a camp at Sheffield, then to Friday Bridge, at Thorney, east of Peterborough. By this time he was corresponding with my parents, and my father took me to the camp on a visit, in 1947. It was an interesting experience - one of the few prisons I've been inside.
He was sent home, in 1948 I think, back to Hamburg. His wife and kids had survived and they lived in a wooden hut at first, as the family home had been bombed. -
Message 19
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 27th January 2011
Just checked. Two separate PoW camps: Friday Bridge near Wisbech, and Thorney near Peterborough. Thorney is the one I was inside, for an afternoon.
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Message 20
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 29th January 2011
There were two POW Camps on Dunstable Downs, for Italians and then German POWs. Two of the Italian POWs were allocated to Whipsnade Zoo (as labourers, not exhibits, before someone asks).
When the Italians joined the Forces of Light in 1943, the Italians ceased to be POWs, but there was no practical way to repatriate them immediately. It was agreed that they would remain as "voluntary" workers (although when they had put their hands up in North Africa a couple of years before, they hadn't known what they were volunteering for).
They stayed in their camps, but presumably the restrictions were relaxed. I suspect that the marriages between Italians and locals probably result from this period. Similarly, many German POWs were retained for several years after the end of the war, and I would imagine restrictions were similarly relaxed by 1947.
One thing, particularly post-war that caused resentment among locals was that the POWs working as labourers got trucked to their places of work, whereas the locals were still subject to petrol rationing and reduced bus services. The novelist Angela Thirkell is quite indignant about this in her immediate post-war novels - she blames the Attlee government.
LW
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