PolishOrigins Forum

 FAQFAQ    SearchSearch    MemberlistMemberlist    ProfileProfile    Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages    Log inLog in    RegisterRegister 
Author
Message
Honjune



Joined: 10 Sep 2010
Replies: 12

Back to top
Post Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2010 1:55 pm      Post subject: Life in a DP Camp Germany
Reply with quote

My parents were displaced people from Poland and lived in DP camps, here is a photo of my father second right with a group of men and a bottle of whatever and one cup.This was part of their entertainment in the camps.


camp life father.jpg
 Description:
Camp life
 Filesize:  1.44 MB
 Viewed:  14854 Time(s)

camp life father.jpg


View user's profile
Send private message
Zenon
PolishOrigins Team Leader


Joined: 28 Apr 2007
Replies: 1515
Location: Poland

Back to top
Post Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:15 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

You can read fascinating story about life in displaced persons' camps in Germany in our friend Tad's biography: I am Australian. Of Polish Descent. in chapter three entitled: The COMMOS STRIKE . There are also many compelling photographs.
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
Honjune



Joined: 10 Sep 2010
Replies: 12

Back to top
Post Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:03 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

This is just one photo of many that I have of my parents 's life in DP camps, I also have of me as well and my brothers. It was a hard life. My father's brother and family moved to Australia and my parents to the USA. Families were seperated. I will look up that book Thank You .
View user's profile
Send private message
Magroski49
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Replies: 1762
Location: Joao Pessoa - Brazil

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:41 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Hi,
Today I have found an information about a prisioner who was "released" on Nov 11, 1940 to Hegelingen, Goldap.
I was able to find where Goldap is, but there is no mention to any concentration, extermination or labor camp there, according to a list of camps in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nazi_concentration_camps.
Does anybody have additional information on what happened to them in Goldap?
Thanks.
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
Henryk
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 313
Location: London ON, Canada

Back to top
Post Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:55 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Try searching the surname in the database of this site:
http://straty.pl/
View user's profile
Send private message
Magroski49
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Replies: 1762
Location: Joao Pessoa - Brazil

Back to top
Post Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:36 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Henryk,

That's where I have found him (Wladyslaw Magrowski). But I don't know why he was sent to Goldap, if there was no camp there. Yesterday I found some sites relating atrocities in Goldap, when the Red Army crossed the border, but that was four years later, in 1944.
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
Henryk
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 313
Location: London ON, Canada

Back to top
Post Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:02 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Magroski49 wrote:
Henryk,
That's where I have found him (Wladyslaw Magrowski). But I don't know why he was sent to Goldap, if there was no camp there.

From www.straty.pl
Quote:
przydział wojskowy =8. p. a. l.
stopień wojskowy =strzelec
jeniec wojenny
przeniesiony na status robotnika cywilnego = Tak
dodatkowe informacje =Stalag I - A; nr jeńca 7713; Stalag I - B; 11.11.1940 zwolniony do Hegelingen, okręg Gołdap

This record says that Władysław was released from the POW camps Stalag I-A and I-B to be a civilian worker in Hegelingen, Goldap.
Evidentally this was a common practice, according to:
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jnwv.htm
Quote:
What had happened was that most of the Polish soldiers who became prisoners of war were turned i nto " civilian workers " by the German authorities. They were thus -- in defiance of the 1929 Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war -- deprived of their prisoner-of-war status and of the protection this should have afforded them.


There is a good record online of Władysław's Army unit:
8. p. a. l =8 pułk artylerii lekkiej, full name: 8th King Bolesław Krzywousty's Płocki Light Artillery Regiment (8 Płocki pułk artylerii lekkiej im. Króla Bolesława Krzywoustego), part of 8th Infantry Division (8 Dywizja Piechoty), Modlin Army (Armia Modlin).
See http://www.unithistories.com/units_index/default.asp?file=../units_index/units.asp
For the 8th Infantry Division's role in the September campaign:
http://felsztyn.tripod.com/germaninvasion/id11.html
It was in Rommel's Army.
View user's profile
Send private message
Magroski49
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Replies: 1762
Location: Joao Pessoa - Brazil

Back to top
Post Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:33 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Henryk,

Thank you so much for you information and the weblinks. I must assume he was killed in 1944, when the russians invaded Goldap ?
I see that he was born in 1913 in Krobia, so I will have to wait one or two three years untill his birth record is available at AP Torun.
One more thing: I have additional information on that Sygmunt Magrowski in straty.pl (even a photo of his tombstone in Germany). Who should I contact in order to give them the info I have?
Pozdrawiam,
Gilberto
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
Henryk
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 313
Location: London ON, Canada

Back to top
Post Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 2:22 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Use the "questionaire". Today it is down for maintenance. From what I remember, it provided spaces for information to be added. When complete, transmit via the site.
View user's profile
Send private message
rjaremus



Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Replies: 29

Back to top
Post Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:28 pm      Post subject: Life in a DP Camp
Reply with quote

I also am a son of a Polish WWII forced labor survivor. I have a story from my deceased father that I would need to clean up before publishing. That said, I would like to comment on the term DP - Displaced Person. In WWII, there were people that were put in camps, ususally called Concentration Camps. These were physical camps like Auchwitz and Bergen-Belsen where people lived apart from society and as we know, many died, or were brutally killed. My grandmother and aunt were both put in a concentration camp because they were Jehova Witnesses.

Then there were people that I call Forced Laborers. My father and the guy in this story were both one of these. These people were not always "locked away". Often they lived on farms run or managed by German farmers. They did their jobs working on the farms. The work was hard, but in most cases the farmers took pretty good care of the hard working Polish workers.

There were also Labor camps. In the early part of the war, my father worked on farms, but as time went on he was sent to Guernsey, England (Channel Islands captured by the Nazi's) and Verdun, France where he worked as a forced laborer in a "camp". In some cases, like in Guernsey, he lived in more like a barrack while working on the mountain fortifications for the German V2 rockets. In Verdun, he was a coal miner. I'm not sure where he slept while doing this work. My father always referred to this as Forced Labor.

There were also some Polish people that worked in German factories. My father's older brother was an engineer. He was put to work in a German engineering factory. I don't know where he lived while doing this work. But I would imagine that they wouldn't be feeding engineers bread and water, so to speak.

There were other Poles that were "drafted" into the German army. My father was recruited, but along with only 3 other Poles from Gdynia, refused to serve as "Volk-Deutsch". These men became soldiers and were summarilly sent to the Russian front. Most were never seen again.

Finally there were many many Displaced People. During and after the war, people were taken out of their homes and sent to different parts of Europe. Poles from the eastern corriodor were relocated to the newly acquired German lands. Germans from east Prussia were relocated into Germany proper. During the war, many people were displaced.

Much as Jewish people have utilized the term Holocaust to describe the terrible experiences that they suffered through, I think non-Jewish Poles should more accurately describe their experiences. Being a "Displace Person" sounds like we're describing someone who was moved out of their homes. To descibe a Forced Laborer as a displaced person doesn't do justice to being forced into heavy labor at gunpoint, deprived of food, put in solitary confinement for infractions, and mistreated as many Poles were. I would like to hear others thoughts on this terminology. Thanks.
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
kathkay



Joined: 27 Oct 2012
Replies: 6

Back to top
Post Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 6:05 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

My father also spent time in DP camps and the last one was in Wetzlar but there doesn't seem to be much information out there about it, any body have any information on this camp??
View user's profile
Send private message
Henryk
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 313
Location: London ON, Canada

Back to top
Post Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 12:22 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Wetzlar Camp:
http://www.cine-holocaust.de/cgi-bin/gdq?efw00fbw002468.gd
http://www.dpcamps.org/wetzlar.html
View user's profile
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    PolishOrigins Forum Index -> Everyday life of our ancestors All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum


Powered by phpBB ©

© 2009-2024 COPYRIGHTS BY THE OWNER OF POLISHORIGINS.COM