If you have seen the classic 1963 Movie `The Great Escape` then apart from the famous motorcycle scene with Steve Mcqueen the other many class scenes included when he is in the cooler for escape attempts and upsetting the Germans...
Under the Geneva Convention a POW could be interned in the camp cooler for up to 30 days, They would have plenty of time to think of more ways to try to escape there imprisonment, something on many men's minds on all sides...
Incidentally, in one scene in the cooler Mcqueen who plays Sargent Hiltz talks to a Scotsman called Ives in the cell next door, Ives talks about being a jockey and racing horses at Musselburgh, a race course here in East lothian!...
Here in East Lothian there were several POW Camps and they too had Coolers for `cooling off` individuals,
I was shown around one as a teenager, and recently revisited it. Sadly it has decayed a lot in inside since the 1980s.
Note;
Don`t ask me where these coolers are, and if you know where they are please don`t say on here, as being on private land there will no doubt be trouble leading to more vandalism by the wrong type of people as so often happens with places like this once locations are revealed.
Windows have already been broken and the dampness has reduced the visibility of most of the writing on the walls which i saw as a teenager when showed around them, a green algae covers many walls which once had drawings, poems, and probably a few swear words in German!
Beside the Guard room is the stove with boiler to heat the building...
The corridor has light from the ceiling, and each cell has a roof or wall window...
Each cell (12 in all) is very small...
Inside the small cells are all the same, with a small table bolted to the wall...
A basic wooden bed frame with steel legs bolted to the floor, behind are the hot water pipes from the stove, central heating!...
An electric light switched on/off from outside the cell and windows that opened to vent air in summer, nothing in the cell allowed you to reach the light or windows,
And there would have been a bucket for the call of nature...
Despite the green algae on most of the walls there is some graffiti visible, now at least 65 years old...
Here in a cell is a plan of the Cooler!...
And here, a self portrait?...
Here a prisoner has written a note, or poem, click on the pics to enlarge, maybe if you speak German you can translate?...
Glass spy hole still there, screw hole where a flip up cover went...
Look at this, in classic prison style, someone counted off the days, he spent a long time in cell No3 over 65 years ago...
Prisoners wash room...
70 year old shunky still flushes in the guard room!...
2nd block only has 2 larger cells, and a guard room...
Stove with boiler on top pumped hot water in a loop around the block, the only heating in the cells during winter..
Guard room...
This looks like it reads 28 days..(later) -:)
This drawing looks like a tank or crane on tracks...
And another in the same cell...
Mural by a guard...
I grew up with my parents having friends who were POWs here and stayed here in East Lothian after release, many had nothing to go back to in Germany, Some from East Germany had no intention to go back due to the likelihood of deportation to Siberia. esp those who had had to fight on the Eastern Front.
They worked as gardeners and farm workers on the Estates here.
Most Germans were of course just the same as you and me, just as they are today, i have German friends who like their ancestors love Britain and our culture.
I was told the first time i was shown around the cooler as a teenager that the solitary back cell was where the hardcore Nazis were put, more isolated and with no side windows.
It is the last cell in the film, I have not put on the film some of the images that though covered slightly with algae are an insight into the minds of some of these men held in there, and quite chilling to see it...
It is quite disturbing to think what humans are capable of doing to others...
With nearly 4000 German POWs at the camp by 1945 there must have been a few who spent a bit of time in the coolers here...
Some film, at 3mins 24 secs there is a face drawn on a corridor wall, probably by a guard, i missed that and only saw it once i made the film, looks like the Kaiser!.
I have swapped the film for the Vimeo upload with a different track, do you know it?...
Update; Here is a link to a friends Flickr set of pics of the writings and some have been translated to english
Did you get the translation of the stuff written on the wall... ? Maybe a job for Andrea...
ReplyDeleteI should get better pics and mail them to you guys Rick
ReplyDeleteHaving seen most of the writings for myself only last year it is amazing. Even more amazing still is the fact that they are still there after all these years.
ReplyDeleteHi Scott, yes it is a capture of time of dark days... hopefully it will remain unseen by all but those with a genuine interest in this history of WW2...
ReplyDelete