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POW camps


Guest jeayris

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Guest jeayris

Hi all,

I was just wondering if any of you are able to help me at all. I am thinking of looking into military captivity on both sides during the Second World War for my History Masters dissertation.

I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out.

Are there local history groups which cover these areas that might have information?

Any help, as always, gratefully received lol

Jo

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My mum remembered that my grandad and grandma had visits from German P.O.W.s. Now I don't know if she was mis-remembering that - I don't see how P.O.W.s could have been allowed out. Maybe it was just after the war and before they were repatriated. Anyway, one of the two men my mum talked about was from Czechoslovakia, and he said he was afraid to return because he felt his life would be in danger for having joined the German Army. That's really all I know.

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hi Jo,

There have been discussions on this Forum. Do a search on here for Redmires and it will throw them up.

The same search on www.sheffieldforum.co.uk will also throw up some more information.

Claire Coulter at ARCUS has been doing some research on the camp at Redmires recently, she may be able to help.

Regards

Bayleaf

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Hi There,

I remember very clearly the POWs at Lodge Moor. Some of them wre working at Arnold Lavers sawmill where my father was a sawdoctor. They used to come to our house on Sunday for dinner - Lord knows how my mother fed them. I had toys made by one of them, a Bavarian, including a dolls cradle and a chair carved in traditional style. One Christmas we had duck as they had borrowed one fron a farm out there. After they were repatriated we heard regularly from one of them who lived in Hamburg and went to stay with him in 1954. In the early 50s they sent us food parcels because the German newspapers were reporting food shortages in England. They were very kind people. One we never heard any more about was from Leipzig in the East. When I tried to find out about him after he wall came down I discovered that he had died in 1978.

They were only very young men, and none of them seemed any different to our own soldiers. It was at this point I became a pacifist.

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My mum remembered that my grandad and grandma had visits from German P.O.W.s. Now I don't know if she was mis-remembering that - I don't see how P.O.W.s could have been allowed out. Maybe it was just after the war and before they were repatriated. Anyway, one of the two men my mum talked about was from Czechoslovakia, and he said he was afraid to return because he felt his life would be in danger for having joined the German Army. That's really all I know.

She was not misremembering there was a lot of this in Sheffield. With regard to Czechs joining he German army a lot of the time they were given no choice.

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Guest jeayris

Thank you all for the information so far, I shall have a search on here for other posts about it.

Chris it sounds like you are a good person to talk to about this lol

Do you know of anybody else that remembers the POW or has similiar stories? I am hoping to add an element of oral history to the project so personal memories such as yours are great.

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Hi all,

I was just wondering if any of you are able to help me at all. I am thinking of looking into military captivity on both sides during the Second World War for my History Masters dissertation.

I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out.

Are there local history groups which cover these areas that might have information?

Any help, as always, gratefully received lol

Jo

Hi jeayris. Have a look in `Sheffield places now gone` under the Camp Bracken Hill Chapeltown. 1st April 2009. Regards, W/E.

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Hi all,

I was just wondering if any of you are able to help me at all. I am thinking of looking into military captivity on both sides during the Second World War for my History Masters dissertation.

I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out.

Are there local history groups which cover these areas that might have information?

Any help, as always, gratefully received lol

Jo

There may be some useful information in this thread from the Sheffield History Chat section

Prisoners of War, Road building in Sheffield

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I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out...

I was born in April 1948 and my godfather Karl Fauser was an ex-p.o.w. from Lodge Moor (it was Camp No 17). In 1945 (or 1946) my grandfather saw an announcement in the paper about inviting p.o.w.'s for Christmas. He was a soldier in the First World War and he could remember kindnesses showed to soldiers by Germans after the 1918 armistice. He wrote to the camp. and Karl and Willi duly turned up for Christmas. Karl got to know the family and our neighbours, and he was surprised how friendly the people were at Woodland View. He repaid their kindness by making toys for the children etc. in the camp workshop - I sitll have the jewellery box he made for my mum. He also smuggled tins of jam, blankets etc. out of the camp to add to what we got via our ration books. Karl became such a friend of the family that he was invited to be my godfather. I'm told he carried me to and from St Polycarp's Church for the christening (his name is still in the parish register). He was repatriated in June 1948, and he came back with his wife the following year for a holiday. In 1950 my grandparents and older sister went to Ludwigsburg for a holiday with him and his family. Karl died aged 88 in 2002 - a great bloke; he was delighted when I learned German and I visited him several times at home. He eventually forgot his English but he never forgot my birthday and there was a phone call every year, also at Christmas.

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I was born in April 1948 and my godfather Karl Fauser was an ex-p.o.w. from Lodge Moor (it was Camp No 17). In 1945 (or 1946) my grandfather saw an announcement in the paper about inviting p.o.w.'s for Christmas. He was a soldier in the First World War and he could remember kindnesses showed to soldiers by Germans after the 1918 armistice. He wrote to the camp. and Karl and Willi duly turned up for Christmas. Karl got to know the family and our neighbours, and he was surprised how friendly the people were at Woodland View. He repaid their kindness by making toys for the children etc. in the camp workshop - I sitll have the jewellery box he made for my mum. He also smuggled tins of jam, blankets etc. out of the camp to add to what we got via our ration books. Karl became such a friend of the family that he was invited to be my godfather. I'm told he carried me to and from St Polycarp's Church for the christening (his name is still in the parish register). He was repatriated in June 1948, and he came back with his wife the following year for a holiday. In 1950 my grandparents and older sister went to Ludwigsburg for a holiday with him and his family. Karl died aged 88 in 2002 - a great bloke; he was delighted when I learned German and I visited him several times at home. He eventually forgot his English but he never forgot my birthday and there was a phone call every year, also at Christmas.

I have a friend who was born and has always lived at Ripley in Derbyshire.

During the war he lived near the famous POW camp in which the german prisoner on which the film "The One That Got Away" escaped and was aprehended trying to steal an aircraft at a nearby airbase in order to effect his escape.

Later in the war some of the prisoners were allowed out into the community to do local work and did make friends with local Derbyshire folk. My friends dad made such a German POW friend and occasionally invited him round for tea on Sundays.

My friends elder sister also had an American boyfriend, who was based on a fairly local airbase used by US forces, and she liked to invite her boyfriend around for tea on Sunday when he could get leave or a pass out.

Not surprisingly then, at Sunday teatime the German POW and the US boyfriend would meet up in the front room for tea with their English hosts.

In my friends own words :-

On Sunday our front room dinner table was like the United Nations meeting before the war had ended, there was never a bad word between them or any falling out, no animosity at all. It made you realise that there could be peace in the world if people like these two were so willing to accept it.

The same friend had another story about "the night of the Sheffield Blitz" in which a returning bomber flying home over Derbyshire having given Sheffield a good hammering had a bomb left which they decided to dump at the end of their street.

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Guest jeayris

Sorry I haven't seen these replies sooner!

Thank you very much to people still adding to this thread, lots of useful information which is great.

If you know anyone that has any memories but does not access these forums I work in Waterstones Orchard Square and if anyone wants to bring information there and leave it for FAO Jo Ayris :)

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I have a friend who was born and has always lived at Ripley in Derbyshire.

During the war he lived near the famous POW camp in which the german prisoner on which the film "The One That Got Away" escaped and was aprehended trying to steal an aircraft at a nearby airbase in order to effect his escape.

Later in the war some of the prisoners were allowed out into the community to do local work and did make friends with local Derbyshire folk. My friends dad made such a German POW friend and occasionally invited him round for tea on Sundays.

My friends elder sister also had an American boyfriend, who was based on a fairly local airbase used by US forces, and she liked to invite her boyfriend around for tea on Sunday when he could get leave or a pass out.

Not surprisingly then, at Sunday teatime the German POW and the US boyfriend would meet up in the front room for tea with their English hosts.

In my friends own words :-

On Sunday our front room dinner table was like the United Nations meeting before the war had ended, there was never a bad word between them or any falling out, no animosity at all. It made you realise that there could be peace in the world if people like these two were so willing to accept it.

The same friend had another story about "the night of the Sheffield Blitz" in which a returning bomber flying home over Derbyshire having given Sheffield a good hammering had a bomb left which they decided to dump at the end of their street.

Italian POW`s somewhere in Derbyshire.

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Guest Nimrod

She was not misremembering there was a lot of this in Sheffield. With regard to Czechs joining he German army a lot of the time they were given no choice.

Czechs [and Poles] joined the German army to fight the Russians as the Russians were the 'real' enemy and at the time the Russians were with the Allies, hence a lot threw in their lot with the Germans. A case of 'the lesser of two evils'.

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Guest jeayris

Czechs [and Poles] joined the German army to fight the Russians as the Russians were the 'real' enemy and at the time the Russians were with the Allies, hence a lot threw in their lot with the Germans. A case of 'the lesser of two evils'.

It is also why repatriation sometimes was quite problematic at the end of the war as the German army was made up of so many different nationalities. Soldiers found that their home was no longer part of the same country when they left and I think it was a factor as to why some decided to stay in the country they were being held in.

If anyone is interested the following book is made up of several different essays on various aspects around the topic of PoWs.

Prisoners of war, Prisoners of Peace. Bob Moore and Barbara Hately-Broad (eds) (Berg, Oxford, 2005).

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It is also why repatriation sometimes was quite problematic at the end of the war as the German army was made up of so many different nationalities. Soldiers found that their home was no longer part of the same country when they left and I think it was a factor as to why some decided to stay in the country they were being held in.

Quite right - my late uncle Peter was Ukrainian, and when the Germans invaded in 1941 he was forced into the Red Army, which was then retreating eastwards. He and a friend deserted and made their way back to their village in the Carpathian mountains where they were hidden in cellars. But then the Germans arrived there and this time Peter was forced into the German Army. He spent much of the next three years in rural Slovakia but eventually was one of only about 3,000 out of 30,000 Ukrainians to survive the battle of Brody. He ended up in a refugee camp in Rimini, Italy, and was given the choice of returning home or going to the UK or America. He chose the UK and never regretted it, though he missed his family and for 20 years he was afraid to contact them in case of reprisals. Eventually he wrote to his sister, received a prompt reply and continued to correspond. A friend who had returned home survived but spent years in prison (many returning Ukrainians were shot for having committed "treason" by joining the German Army, even though they had no choice). In 1946-48 Peter got on well with my German p.o.w. godfather from Lodge Moor Camp, and I suppose he would also have got on well with ordinary Russians. It's quite right what DaveH wrote, that there could be peace in the world if ordinary people were willing to accept it, and if over-ambitious politicians didn't cause wars.

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Guest roydan

Hi all,

I was just wondering if any of you are able to help me at all. I am thinking of looking into military captivity on both sides during the Second World War for my History Masters dissertation.

I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out.

Are there local history groups which cover these areas that might have information?

Any help, as always, gratefully received lol

Jo

I remember as a child seeing the POW's being marched back into the camp at Lodge Moor where the Gipsy quarters are now and they were being accompanie by a British Sergeant who was shouting orders at them to keep in line etc after marching from the quarry on Manchester Road opposite the Bell Hagg public house...I am not sure but I think they were mostly Italian prisoners......Hope this is of help to your studies.......Roy

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There is about to be some digging about up at the old Lodge Moor site. I received an email from the organiser, Clair Coulter from ARCUS, who is organising a site visit on Thu 20th Aug if anyone is interested. Copy of the email below and a flyer attached.

I'm writing to give you an update on the Redmires POW Camp Community

Heritage Project. There has been lots of interest in the project from

individuals and from groups such as the Young Archaeologists, City of

Sanctuary, the Traveller community and the Northern Refugee Centre. As

a first step we would like to have a site visit and a meeting. It's on

Thursday 20th August at 7pm. It would be great if you could come

along. We'll have a quick tour of the site and then meet in the Three

Merry Lads for a drink afterwards. I've attached a flier. Please

circulate to anyone you think might be interested.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like further information.

All the best

Claire

POW_Camp_site_visit.pdf

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There is about to be some digging about up at the old Lodge Moor site. I received an email from the organiser, Clair Coulter from ARCUS, who is organising a site visit on Thu 20th Aug if anyone is interested. Copy of the email below and a flyer attached.

POW_Camp_site_visit.pdf

Just one caveat Mike, there won't be any actual digging now until next year due to funding delays, but the project is getting under way with other aspects.

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Guest jeayris

That you to everyone who keeps contributing!

I have been very busy with work and research that I haven't been on here lately. Only a couple more weeks before the Masters dissertation has to be handed in but I am thinking that I will keep collecting information and maybe turn it into Phd material in a few years!

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Guest horaceelam

Hi all,

I was just wondering if any of you are able to help me at all. I am thinking of looking into military captivity on both sides during the Second World War for my History Masters dissertation.

I know Sheffield had two POW camps, one at Lodge Moor and one at High Green and I was wondering if anyone had any information/memories about them at all? Can be about anything... type of people held there, whether they were involved in the community etc or even recommndations on the best ways of finding that kind of thing out.

Are there local history groups which cover these areas that might have information?

Any help, as always, gratefully received lol

Jo

There was another POW camp on the Wybourne estate and located at a place called Sky edge and overlooked City Road,Norfolk Park and the City. It held Italian prisoners who after a while became quite friendly with the locals.They made various wooden toys which the sold to get extra comforts.They were guarded by the Home guards but after a while were allowed a measure of freedom. Hope this helps you.horaceelam
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