Lamsdorf POW Camp

By Mary Worall

Lamsdorf in the 1940’s

My uncle was a prisoner of war , He was taken at Dunkirk and was then in different camps over the next four plus years,
This I found near the end of his recordings, I was taken with it, I reread it on VE day,
This was written on the end of one bed in Stalag V111B. (Lamsdorf Silesia)

(1) Now I’ll tell you of a tale of some prisoners of war,
who were captured not far from St. Valeris Shore.
On the 12th June as you will recall,
we were battered to hell by the Dutch conger balls

(2) They took us to Langsdorf, our home to be.
Where instead of our grub we got 2 hours of PT
Two loaves between ten, and a bowl of coffee,
Oh! I’ll never forget that place called Stalag V111B.

(3) From Langsdorf they sent us to work in the mines,
At first it all looked good and so fine,
The people and miners , they all looked so glam
and all the words spoke were ‘come Englanders come’

(4) And for our pay they gave us two Marks
Oh how we cursed the dirty old sharks
cigarettes and tobacco we could not get
the boys haven’t got over it yet.

(5) But there come a day when prisoners no more
and we shall board the ship for dear old Blightey’s shore.
To drink wine and whisky not forgetting the rum.
and no more to hear them say ‘come Englanders come’

I put this into my book on May 14th, when waiting to go to work.
I wonder who wrote this and which camp they were moved to.

He added other poems that he collected from people and used a tiny little bit of pencil to put it all into a small children’s note book.

The spellings and English are just as it was. It did me good to reread this precious diary.

N.B. Ed. There’s a huge amount of very interesting information about this camp, and the ‘Long March’ across Europe endured by the prisoners. You can find it here.

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