Thursday, January 29, 2009

Trying to imagine what it was like 64 years ago.




The worst winter in Europe in 150 years. No food from the German guards for the first four days. No hotel to sleep in at the end of a grueling day's slog through blizzard conditions. Hundreds of civilian refugees, mostly old men and women and young children, fleeing westward along the same route pushed by the advancing Russian army. Freezing nights crammed into whatever would supply four walls and a roof - a church one night, wooden barns the next, a huge pottery factory later on. Only a third to a half of the 2,000 POWs from Center Compound, one of them being Lt. James Keeffe, my dad, found refuge in a church in Ilowa (Halbau - the German name during the war). The others were taken by a decent German guard to the lee side of the church and bedded down on straw and some were put into the crypts of the nearby cemetery. Then up the next day, still no food but maybe some warm water graciously offered by a few local farmers, and then marched out into the snow for another day's trek westward through the iron cold, bleak, wind-swept countryside, only to stop when the next night's refuge was found.


Today we 14 Kriegie Kids, and George Bruckert, a WWII reenactor whose second cousin was a POW, finished 41 miles of the 50-some mile trek following the route our dad's took. Passing through the same old hamlets and villages, walking the same cobble stone country roads that wind through farm land and pine forest, we were at times bunched up in groups or stretched out for half a mile. Most of the homes and farms we pass look as they must have when our fathers were here. In fact most were probably built back in the 17 and 1800's. The only difference would be the modern cars and satellite dishes mounted to old brick walls. I wish I knew what all the trees were that lined the narrow roads. Some are large and knarly oaks that spread their twisted branches far overhead from both sides of the road to form what must be a beautiful tunnel in the summer time when the canopy is choked with green leaves. Others I think are chestnut and/or walnut trees. The woods that we pass through are small pine trees, no more than a couple feet in diameter, but thickly planted. Val, Jerry, Richard and I walked parallel to the road in the woods for awhile on a nice forest path. The soft pine needles that covered the path were very welcome after miles of walking on cobble stone and pavement. Throughout the woods are pawed up places; a sure sign that wild boar are about.

We finished today crossing a bridge over the Neisse River into the town of Bad Muskau, just across the border from Poland into Germany. A 100 yards across the bridge we turned right and walked another couple hundred yards to the site of large pottery and ceramic factories that Center Compound stayed in for three days and two night. Finally the Germans came through with some hot food for the men. And finally they were able to warm up as the factory was cooking hot inside.

Off in the distance during that past couple of days, we've heard the low rumbling double boom of large cannon fire. The Polish military must be out practicing. Richard, a Vietnam vet combat medical corpsman, said the artillery fire was probably 30 to 35 miles away. I try to imagine what it must have sounded like as the Russian army pushed westward right behind a wall of their fierce artillery 64 years ago.

Tomorrow we finish our trek when we trek into the town of Spremberg, Germany. We'll walk to the site of what was a German Wehrmacht tank maintenance outfit. There the POWs from Center Compound, and some of the other compounds, were given a cup full of barley soup and then turned around, marched to the train yards and crammed on filthy box cars. Four miserable days later they arrived at their final destination of captivity at the German prison camp called Stalag VIIA.

Stay tuned........ Jim Keeffe




Read more!

End of Day 3, Jan. 29

The nine miles the first night was NOTHING compared to the 18+ miles we marched on Wednesday. My feet felt like I'd been dancing with a large man for several hours. But that, in turn, was NOTHING compared to how they feel tonight after another 14+ miles! Ground beef comes to mind...
Read more and see a video of the children at the school in Ilowa that we visited, and a panorama of the barns at Grosselten...


Tuesday night we marched from Stalag Luft III to Ilowa, Poland. Wednesday we marched 18+ miles from Ilowa to Priebus, Poland. Today we marched 14+ miles from Priebus, Poland to Bad Muskau, Germany. I can't tell you how good it felt to cross that river and know we had finished the day's march!

The weather has not been bad - the first night was about 20 degrees fahrenheit, but on Wednesday and Thursday is was about 28 or 30 degrees fahrenheit. Today, we marched the 14+ miles in weather that was, again, clear, but was about 30 degrees fahrenheit all day. Our fathers were not so fortunate. 1945 was the coldest winter on record for years and the first night and part of the next day was bitterly cold, with six inches of snow on the ground, winds, and with some groups of POWs experiencing additional snow as they walked. The only thing we may have had worse then our fathers - age! They were predominantly in their twenties and early thirties, while we are all in our 50s and 60s. They had the advantage of youth, but were definitely malnourished after their stay at SLIII.

The second day we visited an elementary school in Ilowa, Poland, prior to our march. The children were wonderful, and we were treated to tea and cakes, listened to the children singing and toured the school. Today we visited another school that housed both elementary and high school students. We toured the school, the grounds, visited a classroom and played volleyball with some of the students. We also visited a classroom where they were dancing, and several of our more adventurous members (George, Marilyn and Evelyn) did a little swing dancing for the students. Val mimed "crazy Americans" and the students grinned in agreement. :o) The Polish people have been wonderful!

In addition to the marching, we have toured some of the barns and churches our fathers slept in along the route, and we plan to visit some of the factories in Bad Muskau. We're sleeping in Gasthaus Schlossbrunner tonight. The best hotel yet!

I've posted more pictures at: SLIII Trip Photos

Here's a video of the children at Ilowa, Poland:





Read more!

Trinity Students

I hope that everyone has enjoyed their Snow Days!!

Tonight we are staying in Bad Muskau, which is right on the Polish-German border. We will have out last day of walking tomorrow, when we will head for Spremberg. Today was not as bad as yesterday, my feet aren't quite as sore. It was a beautiful walk, lots of pine trees on either side of the road, with snow. The hardest part of the walk was when we had to walk on the road made of cobblestones. Their roads are about as wide as one lane of our roads, but cars and trucks go both ways.

We saw the barns where our dads spent the night, although they are in not in very good shape anymore. The walk also took us through several little towns. We can be so thankful that we are as blessed with the wonderful homes and town that we live in! We were joined for a while by a little boy about 9 years old who was roller skating down the road. We don't know where he came from, there weren't any houses around, but he enjoyed going along with us!

We all hurt quite a bit, but I can't imagine walking this in a snowstorm all this way when I was malnourished and weak.

I don't know if we will be able to work out a webcam, because we are never sure exactly what time we will finish our walk, but I will try.

God's blessings to you!
Mrs. Maurer

We also visited another school. Those students have a new gym that is about the same age as ours, and although it is a very nice gym by Polish standards, it is not nearly as nice as ours!
Here's the site: Flat Stanley pictures
Read more!

January 29, 2009 - Day 3 of the Hike

If you checked the pictures yesterday, be sure to check again - we're adding them daily (when we have Internet access).

The first night of the hike, Jan. 27th, we started out at 11:00pm from the South Compound of Stalag Luft III (SLIII), and walked up the road that runs between West Compound and the South and North Compounds. The curator of the SLIII museum, Jasek, brought along a plastic "burp" gun -- he was our "guard"! :o) Actually, he drove his jeep-type vehicle in front of us and once we were out of the camp, our bus driver followed behind us. Before we left the camp, we immediately spread out and lost several of our group. The delay was minimal, but taught us some lessons. We were happy to be walking late at night through Poland, because they zip along on those ice-covered roads there. The weather was cold, about 25 degrees (not near what it had been there about a week before, thank God!), but we found that many of us were somewhat over-dressed. We sang a few songs: "I've Got 6 Pence," and what we could remember from the Air Corps song ("Off we go, into the wild blue yonder..."). Once on the main road, our bus driver followed behind with his lights on, flashing to us when a car was passing him. There was no sidewalk, so we traveled in the dark on the road. Often, there was a shoulder on the road, but when we went over the Autobahn, there was none. The first night we walked nine miles. More later... it's time to march again!

The link to more pictures is here
Read more!