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Escapes and tunnels in Camp 13a

It's really hard to write about trips when we meet people who was so close to stories which aren't written in any books. Fear, escapes and longing that typical features which appears very offten in memories of POW's relatives. This time we heard amazing story about three escapes and liberation by Americans. We really admire people who decided to visit our city sometimes for few hours only to see footsteps, places connected to Stalag but moreover to their personally history. Below we present you a brief from Michael's trip to Torun which is trully hard to publish at all. But belive us information about tunnels in Stalag XXA really suprised us! 

Our trip over to Poland was wonderful and our accommodation at Hotel Spichrz was fantastic. 
The studio was on two floors it was like an apartment but without the kitchen. I would recommend the Hotel without any hesitation.
Prepeparation to trip 
 We started the morning with a presentation which my wife and found very interesting it was full of new and previously unknown information about my father and the prison camp. Pawel showed us a map of all the forts that are around Torun. He showed us on the map just where Stalag XXA was. I was very surprised to find it was south of the River Vistula I always believed it to be north of the river. So this was new information about my father. Then he told us all about the history of the forts. 
He showed us photos and told us detailed information about the P.O.W. Camps. 
On the footsteps
Then after the presentation we then went to see the Private Museum that is run by Piotr (Peter) Olecki at the Historical War Museum. Which was just a short walk from the Hotel Spichrz. This museum is truly amazing it crammed full of interesting artefacts and items which includes every day items such as food containers, Red Cross tins and boxes, games,related to the Prisoners of War and how their life was in the camps. Piotr then pointed to a sketch of a prison camp and said “That is XXA13 were your father was”. There had to be tunnels at least one because my father spoke of it saying they could only dig in the summer because the ground was too frozen in the winter months. 

We started next day with Hania and presentation and trip thru all places connected to my father.  I was standing in my father’s footsteps and seeing the same road that he would have seen all those years ago as that 20 year old man not knowing where he was or that was going to happen to him next....
We can highly recommend them. I would like now to take this opportunity to thank them for the marvellous work they are doing.

In Historical - War Museum
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Location: Toruń, Polska

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