Ken came to Toruń with his wife Sue tracking his father's steps in Stalag XXA (20A). His father worked in a workshop repairing shoes, clothes and theatre costumes. His comrades were Sam Kydd and Albie Tomson. The first one, after the war became a famous actor and the latter after leaving the camp died in the plane crach near Paris, France. Thanks to numerous documents and materials we were able to move back in history and see Torun in a wartime persepective.
The reason for our visit to Torun was to try and identify and visit as many sites that my father Corporal Ron Harrison, 7th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, would have been at during his five years in captivity at Stalag XXA during the Second World War.
Ron rarely spoke about his time as a POW but he did have a considerable collection of wartime pictures plus a number of hand drawn sketches from publications such as “The Prisoners Pie”, which was an official paper produced by the prisoners.
Ron signed up with his school friend Albert Thompson at the age of 19 and both endured five years in captivity in Stalag XXA and also survived the three months “Long March” back to freedom. The friends were split up on the flight back to England from Paris, Ron arriving home only to find out that Albi’s plane had crashed killing all on board. Some years ago a local historian wrote a book “Operation Exodus” based on Albi’s diaries and Ron is mentioned on a number of occasions giving us exact dates and locations.
Ron also had two other friends he kept in touch with after the war which from their letters also helped with my research. Private Ken Brydson, Leicestershire Regiment, sent letters and pictures from a visit to Torun in 1996 and mentioned their time together in Forts XIII and XIV. The other friend Lance Corporal Sam Kydd became a well-known actor and wrote his own book “For You the War is Over”. Although Ron is not mentioned it gives a great insight into life in Stalag XXA and does mention a funeral where Sam is a pall bearer to his close friend Danny Faulds. Ron has the exact same picture of the funeral in his collection and it is possible that they were part of the same group of friends.
With this limited information I contacted Paweł Bukowskiat at Wartime Blogs, Torun and over the next few emails he was able to identify sites, put together an Itinerary and arranged for us to meet his friend Piotr Olecki who has an amazing museum of Wartime Memorabilia in the basement of his school.
When we arrived in Torun Pawel met us on three occasions including an interesting introduction into POW life in the Stalag Camps and how this fitted into the wartime history of Torun and Poland. He then took us out to numerous locations including five where he was able to confirm that my father would have been 100%[....] We were only able to gain access to the latter thanks to Pawel’s local knowledge and persuasion.
Pawel’s in depth knowledge we did get a better understanding of how and why the Forts were built and a genuine feeling as to how POW life may have been!
Thank you Pawel for making our trip such an adventure and for helping us try and understand a little of what my father and his fellow prisoners may have endured in Stalag XXA.
Our warmest wishes, we will never forget your kindness. Ken & Sue Harrison,
Comments
Post a Comment