Stalag VII-A
(Before we were shipped to Stalg XVII-B)

From everything that I saw and heard about Stalag VII-A those four words described it very well. Two American POWs who I know quite well - Myself and Robert E. Hansen. After escaping from a prison train, and recaptured 14 days later, we were shackled in leg irons and transported to some old dungeon of some kind, for a number of weeks. Finally, when we were released, we were shipped by box car to 7-A where we lived like animals in a Detention Barracks with 100 to 200 Russian POWS - A place where the Geneva Convention did not exist - for six more weeks.

The place was alive with lice and fleas. It was so crowded that all of us could not lay down at the same time. We slept in shifts. The stench was unbearable, until the guards pulled out the dead Russians from under the floorboards. Insects crawled on the table and along are arms and hands when we ate. (I would rather not try to describe the "food."

Some of the German guards came off the dreaded Russian Front, and they had real hatred for the Russian POWS. (The two of us were the only Americans in this barracks at that time, but we were not treated any differently)

The guards would do anything to make it more miserable. No band aids if you were cut. Generally, there was not any paper, let along toilet paper. The latrine was something that could not be imagined in science fiction.

     I had an infection that may have been caused by some of the filth and Asian Scabies that get under the skin and bred. Anyway, the infection was also on my private parts. Every day it would scab over so that I could not urinate until I pulled off the scab. So every day I would hold my water until night, then slowly, and painfully I would peel off the scab, and relieve myself. When I tried to explain it to the guards, they made a disgusting joke about it. This went on for weeks. One day, while outside, during a short "exercise period," I spotted and American Major wearing a medical insignia (He ad recently been captured in Africa and was walking in a line with other POWs on the other side of the barbed wire fence.) While trying to catch up to him before the Major got our of the area, I tried to explain to the doctor what my problem was. The doctor pulled out a small can of sulfur ointment and tossed it over the fence.
   "Try this," he said. "It is all I have. It might work. Good luck, soldier." A few days later, the infection was gone, but not my hatred for those guards.
      At the end of our six weeks, we were moved to the American Compound, where we would see some of our friends, and, hopefully, a Red Cross Parcel, which up to that time, I had not seen any.
       By this time, my sores and infections took their toll. I never knew how or when, but somehow I got into the Punjab or "Sikhs" Compound, and I have always believed that these people saved my life. (The wearers of the turban, and whose surname usually end in Singh, meaning Lion, hence their reputation for being fierce fighters) They were "arbiters" or Workers in the field at Stalag VII-A. (They had served with the English) To me, they were a mysterious people, until I learned more about them. They all had uncut hair gathered under a turban, sword, a comb, dagger, and a bracelet on the right wrist.
        The Germans showed respect for the Sikhs, and pretty much left them alone. The Guards didn't visit their Compound as often as they did the others. (Most of them were bilingual and better English than I) They kept me hidden, and gave me the opportunity to attend their meetings, and their periods of Meditation. They taught me how they meditated, and why. The Sikhs, do not practice the caste system. "All humans are equal - Improve the mind, the body, which is a gift from God," is something very meaningful to them.

     When my time came to leave them, they spoke to me about these things, and reminded me that we all were experiencing a wonderful privilege of being alive, because it gave us the opportunity to shape what we could be in some future life. While I was there, an older man, who they called Kabu Singh, was my Garu (teacher).
         The day when I left, Kabu said to me, "We leave as one," and he bowed.

          When I was smuggled back to the American Compound, I found Bob Hansen, and he told me about Barbed Wire Johnson - The guy who had fell on the German Guard so he couldn't shoot me from the train window. Bob explained how he had been told about it, and how the Guard got up and hit Johnson in the head with the but of his gun. Johnson,s mind was effected, and he would walk up and down by the barbed wire fence and count the barbs. One day he went over the warning wire, and he was shot...Shortly after, we were shipped to another camp, Stalag XVII-B, near Krems, Austria.

About 18-months later, near the end of the war, about 130,000 POWs of all nationalities were crowded into Stalag VII-A. I understand it had been cleaned up since I was there. Someone told me it reminded him of a giant hobo village! Not to me. No respectable hobo would spend even one night in Stalag VII - A , at least when I was there in the early part of 1943.