[Irony alert: WJS was a private throughout WWII and you may recall his caustic comments about General Eisenhower in England. In this chapter, we find a new species, Sergeants. Probably better than generals but closer at hand.]
Stalag VIIA
Our train of boxcars came to a stop at a small station named Moosburg. We backed up a short distance on a siding, the doors were opened, and we unloaded. There was sunlight and the weather was moderate. Again we walked into a barbed-wire-enclosed camp with manned machine guns in tall towers. This was Stalag VIIA. It was situated in gently rolling agricultural country with small forests visible from the camp yard. Stalag VIIA was not as crowded as XIIA. Still we did not at first have bunks. Although it was nearly November and the air was sharp, it was not cold. We had come far south, deep into Germany, away from the advancing Allied armies. We had, as we slowly discovered, come to Bavaria, fifty miles north of Munich.
Our compound was like a zoo with an indoor and outdoor living and pacing area. We moved about in our own section with relative freedom, like captive animals convinced but seemingly adjusted to our restricted environment. We lived in buildings that were long, one-storied, made of stucco, brick, or wood. There were two sections of sleeping quarters divided in the center by an enclosed space with a concrete floor. The small center room was always cold because of the concrete floor and the four Windows without glass. There were three rooms in the center area, one with two water spigots, one with a pump and table for washing clothes, and a third with a brick furnace for cooking. The furnace room was occupied most of the time. It was especially crowded whenever wood and food were available.
Our barracks was the core of all our activity. The room was low, dark, and crowded, from one end it gave the impression of a tunnel. The barracks was dimly lit by six naked lightbulbs so weak that I could look directly into them without blurring my vision. There were two rows of bunk stacks, one on each side of the aisle down the middle of the barracks. During the day there was light from the ten or twelve small Windows, but since most of the bunks headed toward the side of the building, light was restricted to the spot near the window. Flanked by two stacks of bunks, each open space in front of the Windows was a beehive of activity.
After five weeks of sleeping on the brick floor, we got bunks. The bunks were three high, two sections wired together side by side so that each man had a man adjacent to him. The bunks were wooden frames with heavy wires for springs and a gunnysack, the length of the frame, stuffed with excelsior and loaded with fleas, lice, and bedbugs. The bottom bunk sagged so that a man's butt touched the cold floor. The top bunk was the most sought after, since bunks underneath suffered from dust sprinkled through the pores in the gunnysacks.
Hanging from the bunks, from the walls, and from the ceiling were freshly washed clothes; a variety of tin cans, ingeniously contrived with handles; toasting irons; swinging shelves; stationary
ledges; Red Cross boxes; towels; elaborate pots and pans picked up on the Munich detail; musical instruments. These hanging objects gave the barracks the appearance of a well-stocked pawnshop. No two items were alike. All the clutter increased the dimness and darkness of the barracks. During the shorter days of winter, with less light and longer hours spent in the barracks, the "hardware" and the smoke from the cooling stoves saturated the living space with dimness.
Across the room one-fourth of the wall space was given over to bunks. The remaining space consisted of tables, long, rude, unplanned planks, with accompanying benches. Beyond the tables at the end of the room was an enclosed space-a private quarters that housed the staff who ran the barracks. There was a door with a sign:
PRIVATE-KNOCK.
The occupants of Private Knock were there when we arrived. They were American POWs called sergeants and were in charge of daily details, getting and distributing supplies and food, assisting the Germans with work details, and passing on information from camp headquarters. There were approximately two hundred privates in each of the two barracks. Two hundred ravenously hungry privates made for some tension.
The privates were detailed to bring the pots and cans of food from the central kitchens to the barracks, where the division took place. At first the distribution was behind PRIVATE-KNOCK, but later we were organized into groups of twenty-five with a leader who was admitted to Private-Knock. We were appeased but everlastingly suspicious. Continuous hunger sharpened our concern for food, any food, all food. Absolutely nothing else was of equal importance.
...
Map of Moosburg's location NE of Munich
Site of Stalag VII A
Stalag VII A memorial, Moosburg
