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Kazmer describes the camp barracks as having a central hall, a common room, with rooms on each side. There were wood upper and lower bunk, matresses of straw, and a couple of blanks. There was a small stove for heat and the men used ours mostly to heat what little food that came in the Red Cross packages. The German menu was the same every day: Soup and bread. The two loaves of bread were for the 16 men in the room. He was the official bread cutter and took whatever was left. They always looked forward to the Red Cross packages. It wasn't always a sure thing. It depended on war problems. In those days many of the POWs smoked and each package had 6 packs of cigarettes. Everybody had a partner, Leon Pargello, became Kazmer's buddy and his best friend. The two of them didn't smoke. Others were so despirate to smoke that they traded their food ration for cigarettes. Each barrack had one cold shower in warm weather only. There was no inside water and a community outhouse with eight holes and no privcey. It would be pumped out when it was ready to overflow. These were located throughout the compound. The barracks were locked at night, which created a problem for those who needed relief in the middle of the night. Ingerson was now held at Stalag Luft VIIA east of Nuremberg. US troops approaching from the west now compelled the German to evacuate this camp as well. The POWs were marched out to the East. LT Ingerson and a comrade managed to slip away from the column and walked into the woods. They could hear distant fighting (artillery & aerial bombardment) indicating Americans had come into Germany. They stayed up in the hills for seven days when their rations had ran out. They often heard some German people gathering firewood, so they stayed hidden, and didn't get caught. They then decided to walk toward to where the fighting was, a long distance away. No sooner did they get to the edge of the woods, out in the open, they were caught by German soldiers. They could see the autobahn down the hill. To their amazement, they were captured by the most feared of German soldiers, the SS. Much to their surprise and relief, they were taken to a town and put in jail in individual cells. The jailkeeper told Quentin to take off his shoes and he refused. He was taken out in the hallway and shown all the shoes from other prisoners lined up. Quentin realized that was what they did, and he gave him his. The following day the jailer came to Quentin's cell with his shoes and some food. He was speaking to him in German trying to explain that President Roosevelt was dead. The following days they were taken out of the jail by an OLD soldier with a gun over his shoulder. They suspected they were being taken to another camp. The camp they got to was a for British prisoners. Upon their arrival, there was a lot of excitement. Quentin learned from the British that that day some were being taken out of the camp and marched south. Out on the highway they were strafed by American or British aircraft, whose pilots mistakenly assumed they were Germans. After that the British painted a red cross on a large sheet to protect them. |