I remember that awful, first train journey from Greece to Germany. I remember many other train journeys taken in Germany, and especially the first one, that took us from Frankfurt to Muhlberg. 60 of us were crammed into a wooden, windowless railway truck, labelled in French "40 hommes, 8 cheveux" (40 men or 8 horses). I don't remember how long the journey took. I think it may have three days. We were exceedingly uncomfortable, underfed and underwater. Of course, we were the lowest priority in railway traffic - everything else came first.
When we arrived at the Muhlberg rail head, (about 120, I think, or two carriage loads) we were offloaded and marched a long way to the prison camp, escorted by yelling guards making passes at us with their bayonets if we strayed out of line or dawdled. It was then snowing, and very, very cold. I think it was about 16th December 1943.
We arrived at the camp just as dusk was falling, and were put into a long barracks hut, all timber, with 3-tier wooden bunks, rows and rows of them, along the right-hand side. There were 240 beds altogether, and we filled the lot. We were all Air Force air crew, gathered up from different battle zones, but mainly those shot down over Germany during bombing raids from England.
I don't remember if there were prisoners already occupying the hut, or if it filled up later, but the place was certainly full by Christmas. I had a top bunk, very deficient in bed boards, and not far under the ceiling, which was of a compressed material rather like a mixture of cardboard and wood chips. The huts were built as double-ended accommodation with a central washing area, all concrete, with several cold water taps for personal use, and for washing clothes. The latter was a most difficult task, using "ersatz" (artificial) soap occasionally doled out grudgingly by our captors. This soap was heavy, making the water a bluish colour, and produced very little lather.
The other end of our building, also accommodating about 240, was occupied by soldiers, mainly from the British Isles, but there were also some Cypriots and Greeks among them.
From time to time, new inmates arrived on the camp, after their days of interrogation at Dulag Luft, Frankfurt. Having been recently shot down while taking part in the air raids over Germany, we eagerly sought news from them; how the war was going, what conditions were like in England, which Squadrons they were members of, etc.
Becoming acclimatised to our new way of life was very depressing. There was little to eat, of course. The Germans were not about to waste good food on useless prisoners. We received basic rations of soup (we called it "skilly") made from turnips, mangels, potatoes, etc., none of them too clean, and not too plentiful. Boiled potatoes were dished up two or three time a week, but they also were not plentiful, and they had to be shared among groups of men called "syndicates". For convenience, we would band together on these occasions with, for example, five men in each syndicate. A measure of potatoes would be doled out to us - always an odd number , by some peculiar quirk. Think of nine - for instance - different sized spuds, to be divided up between five hungry men! Eagle eyes watched the share-out, as they were cut up and distributed.
The same system operated with the horrible German rye bread. A couple of times weekly, we would receive a portion cut from one of these heavy, indigestible loaves, and an instruction as to how many men it was to feed. Then the portion had to be cut very, very carefully so as to provide each man with a similar part. Even the crumbs were carefully doled out! Very rarely, we received portions of cooked meat, which we thought was horseflesh, but it was always in the smallest quantities. Also available every morning was a huge tub of rusty coloured warm water. This came in at about 10am, and those who had to shave (I was not one, fortunately) would collect a mugful, to take to the wash-house for their daily scrape, usually with an extremely blunt razor. I think I had been in the prison camp about two months, when the discovery was made that the rusty "hot water" was actually a ration of morning coffee! Made with roasted and ground acorns, it was never any good, even when made in strength. The men continued to use it as shaving water - it was a little better than the stone-cold variety that came from the taps.
Every morning at 6am we had "appel", the roll-call to ensure that no prisoners had escaped. This duty was carried out inefficiently and with some sadism by the guards. We were forced to stand near our huts for very long periods in the most bitter weather, while the stupid soldiery counted slowly and very inaccurately, up and down the lines. Finally, satisfied that all was correct, we were allowed back into our huts, where we tried to get warm with an early brew of tea or coffee.
These drinks were made from the supplies in our Red Cross parcels and, without the food contained in them, we would undoubtedly have starved. The precious parcels were issued in the good times at the rate of one per prisoner, each week. In bad times, they were shared, sometimes between two, and often between four or more. The mixed tins of stew, meat, margarine or butter, and the packets of biscuits, dried fruit, and sometimes of chocolate, made up a parcel weighing about 2 pounds (a little under 1kg) and were eaten very carefully to make them last through the week.
There were two stoves in each hut - that is, at each end and some distance in from the doorways, there was an enclosed brick fire, with flat iron plates on top, that served as our cooking range. Both fires led to a central chimney, so that there was a degree of warmth to be gained from the flues. On the plates, 240 of us had to boil our water for drinks, and do what little cooking we were able to manage with the limited food in our parcels. We had self-appointed fire sentries, who would stand all day at the stoves, call out numbers from the tags placed on the tea-billies to identify the owners, and move them to one side to make way for the next billy or dixy in line.
Among other shortages, we hadn't much in the way of fuel. We had to use artificially made coal blocks very carefully, as they were doled out to us from the central store. A "coal fatigue" from our hut went for its rations one day, with me as one of the party. With the German sentries standing guard as the coal was taken from the shed, we managed to create a series of diversions, meanwhile kicking along extra coal blocks furtively from man to man, until finally the stolen extra blocks were hastily thrown into a sack and spirited away to our hut. By this time, our unsuspecting sentries were in a furious state at our distracting diversions, and very close to bayonetting any prisoner close enough to reach.
Life under these conditions was very tedious, of course. Various ways were employed to lighten our lot, by our own comrades. There was a system of voluntary classes formed by teachers of one kind or another. I enrolled in a Forestry class, and in Bridge. I think I took one or two lessons in the former, but none in Bridge, before I was off from the camp in my bid to escape. With hindsight, I equate those classes to our current system of U3A (University of the Third Age) that provides education, information and diversion for our retirees.