Post by Jaga on Dec 23, 2017 22:25:46 GMT -7
I know that I posted links before, but it was almost 10 years ago. Some of these memoires are interesting enough to share and my uncle is not anymore around us:
culture.polishsite.us/articles/art389fr.htm
The memoirs of my uncle Frank contain many interesting stories, sometimes dramatic and sad, sometimes comic. He was lucky not to serve on the first line of the front except at the very end of the war when the Germans were desperate for more men. Let me quote, with his permission, a fragment of his memoirs from the time when he was in Italy with a detachment assigned to protect an aircraft cannon.
In our company's quartermaster service was a boy who was mentally slow, so he served as the food carrier delivering food in thermoses and bags to the soldiers of the first line (soldiers with the automatic weapons and observers). Every day the supply truck brought him to our position, then he carried the bags to the serving soldiers. It took him a couple of hours to get there and back, about 6 km (4 miles) one way. One night he never came back. We thought that he was either killed on the way or he was taken by the allied forces patrol, as happened frequently to our telephone operators. The allied forces were setting traps for telephone operators (since their jobs was so crucial) but if this boy got into their hands - it was just by chance. We looked for him later on but could not find any trace.
After 2-3 weeks he came back. His thermoses and all bags were filled with American cans, chocolate and good cigarettes. Apparently he was taken at night in front of the German line and he survived shouting loudly to Germans that he is one of the German soldiers.
This was really unusual, since allied forces never before released any of the telephone men. We thought that after they examined him they realized that his mental development is too low, so that he is not a real spy or any danger for them and they just let him go. In the same time they mocked the German army giving him food cans, chocolate and luxury cigarettes which were unreachable dream for a typical soldier on our side of the frontline.
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This event reminded me of another story, one which happened where I lived in Brynow (a district of Katowice, Upper Silesia) in September 1939. We had a neighbor named Pawel (Paul) but everybody called him Apa (ape). He was seriously mentally retarded. His posture, face, behavior and the way he spoke - were clearly abnormal. After Germans entered Brynow, Apa suddenly disappeared. We knew that Germans took him but nobody knew where and what for. Apa came back after a couple of weeks His story was hard to believe but true. Germans dressed him in Polish military uniform of a corporal. They drove him like a monkey round to different German towns presenting him as a Polish noncom and a POW. Now, can you imagine what people in these German towns and villages thought about who Polish soldiers are? These are the methods of German propaganda, unfortunately some of these methods were convincing enough for people to believe.
culture.polishsite.us/articles/art389fr.htm
The memoirs of my uncle Frank contain many interesting stories, sometimes dramatic and sad, sometimes comic. He was lucky not to serve on the first line of the front except at the very end of the war when the Germans were desperate for more men. Let me quote, with his permission, a fragment of his memoirs from the time when he was in Italy with a detachment assigned to protect an aircraft cannon.
In our company's quartermaster service was a boy who was mentally slow, so he served as the food carrier delivering food in thermoses and bags to the soldiers of the first line (soldiers with the automatic weapons and observers). Every day the supply truck brought him to our position, then he carried the bags to the serving soldiers. It took him a couple of hours to get there and back, about 6 km (4 miles) one way. One night he never came back. We thought that he was either killed on the way or he was taken by the allied forces patrol, as happened frequently to our telephone operators. The allied forces were setting traps for telephone operators (since their jobs was so crucial) but if this boy got into their hands - it was just by chance. We looked for him later on but could not find any trace.
After 2-3 weeks he came back. His thermoses and all bags were filled with American cans, chocolate and good cigarettes. Apparently he was taken at night in front of the German line and he survived shouting loudly to Germans that he is one of the German soldiers.
This was really unusual, since allied forces never before released any of the telephone men. We thought that after they examined him they realized that his mental development is too low, so that he is not a real spy or any danger for them and they just let him go. In the same time they mocked the German army giving him food cans, chocolate and luxury cigarettes which were unreachable dream for a typical soldier on our side of the frontline.
__________________________________________________________________________________
This event reminded me of another story, one which happened where I lived in Brynow (a district of Katowice, Upper Silesia) in September 1939. We had a neighbor named Pawel (Paul) but everybody called him Apa (ape). He was seriously mentally retarded. His posture, face, behavior and the way he spoke - were clearly abnormal. After Germans entered Brynow, Apa suddenly disappeared. We knew that Germans took him but nobody knew where and what for. Apa came back after a couple of weeks His story was hard to believe but true. Germans dressed him in Polish military uniform of a corporal. They drove him like a monkey round to different German towns presenting him as a Polish noncom and a POW. Now, can you imagine what people in these German towns and villages thought about who Polish soldiers are? These are the methods of German propaganda, unfortunately some of these methods were convincing enough for people to believe.