Prisoners of war for breaking stalag rules were
sent to a confinement cell. Cells like this functioned in every fort. For
example, in fort 13, this cell was dreary and it had no windows, There was no
electricity. A slatted bed board jutted out from the wall. There was no toilet
just a lavatorial bucket. It was very cold inside because of the drained wall
which was placed deep in the outer wall and the prisoner was given only one
blanket to cover. Because sleeping in those conditions were almost impossible prisoners
of wall often left signs on the walls like: Love
to Mum, fish and chips or thinking of you always.
"I will always be grateful to Pawel for helping me understand better what happened to my father when he was captured by the German army after the fighting at Dunkirk. Like many former British POWs, Dad was reluctant to tell his children very much about what he had endured during the war. We knew he spent most of the war in German POW camps, in particular one in Poland. From his army records we discovered that camp was Staleg XX-A. I contacted Pawel at very short notice recently when I was in traveling with my husband in Europe. Pawel was able to meet me in Torun to walk me through the history of Staleg XX-A and some of the forts of Torun. My father, John Wilkinson, was with the British Expeditionary Force, serving in the Light Tank Regiment of the 1st East Riding Yeomanry. We believe he fought at Cassel in France before being captured. It was extraordinary for me to walk with Pawel at Torun where the British POWs disembarked, knowing my father would hav...
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