Side Trip to Lubin - One POW Left Behind

The January, 1944 burial of Lt. Sconiers. Gen. Clark is in the foreground on the right.
An hour away from Stalag Luft III is the small town of Lubin, Poland. Besides accompanying my fellow Kriegie Kids on the march and trip through Germany and Poland, I had one other “mission.” After some years of research, I became aware of one POW left behind. This POW was Lt. Ewart Sconiers, formerly of South Compound, where my own father had resided. Ewart has a fascinating, yet poignant, story. He washed out of pilot training during the war because he could not manage to land the big bombers. After he washed out, he became, like my father, a bombardier. On one of his missions, his co-pilot was killed and his pilot was very badly burned. Ewart was called up to the cockpit, and he soon realized that the only way the rest of the crew would be saved was if he took over and flew the crippled B-24 back across the English Channel and landed it. That is exactly what he did, landing at my father’s base at Horsham St. Faith. For that bravery, Ewart was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and he also received a purple heart. FDR mentioned Ewart in one of his Fireside Chats.

On a later mission, Ewart’s plane was shot down, and he became a POW at Stalag Luft III. One day while walking on the icy circuit, he fell and hit his ear on a jagged tree stump. Infection set in, and because his ear problem was left untreated, he experienced more serious medical problems that eventually led to him displaying symptoms of mental illness. His fellow kriegies tried to protect him from the guards, but one day when the men were outside, the guards came into his barrack and took him away. The Germans, rather than repatriating him, removed him from the camp and sent him to a mental hospital in Lubin. The next day, Ewart was dead. Some Germans said he had a heart attack, and other Germans said he died of pneumonia. The kriegies did not believe either was the cause of his death.

On Jan. 29th,1944, a contingent of Senior American Officers, including then Col. A.P. Clark, “Padre Mac,” the well-loved Scottish chaplain, Col. “Rojo”Goodrich, and Lt. Stenstrom who had been on Sconiers’ crew, road on the train with their deceased friend to Lubin and buried him in a small cemetery there. The Germans encased his wooden casket in an elaborate metal covering that the SAOs carried to the cemetery. The wooden casket, which had been covered with an American flag, was then lowered into the ground. German wreaths adorned the grave but bore swastikas on the ribbons. The SAOs then sadly returned to Stalag Luft III.

The long evacuation march followed for the POWs of Stalag Luft III a year later, and soon they were liberated in Moosburg at Stalag VIIA. For 65 years, Lt. Gen. Clark has felt the pain of leaving Ewart behind. He drew me a map of what he remembered of that burial day, and I took it with me for the sake of comparison. Everything matched up as I walked the pathways to the cemetery that he and the other officers walked that day. Only recently have the wheels been set in motion by a team of researchers and friends to bring Ewart home.

For those few hours, on the 65th anniversary of Ewart’s burial, when I left my fellow Kriegie Kids and went to Lubin, I visited with those there that knew his story, including Mr. Stephen Marks, an American working in Lubin. His office is in the former mental hospital where Sconiers had been taken. Having recently become acquainted with Ewart’s niece, Pamela Whitelock, I represented her at the grave and memorial. I placed an American flag at the grave alongside a bouquet of purple irises. As I promised Pamela, I whispered to Ewart that she would come soon to bring him home. I was interviewed by the press in Lubin and before leaving the area, I took many pictures, some of which I will attach. A catalpa tree, with heart-shaped leaves, was planted at the gravesite by a “friend” of Ewart’s over 65 years ago. To this day, we still do not know who planted that tree.

When the Communists took over in that area of Poland immediately after the war, the U.S. was severely limited in its attempts to reclaim its fallen airmen. A team was allowed in in 1947, but it failed to find the grave. At one time, years later, Ewart’s sister went to Poland searching for her brother, but she could never find his grave. Not long ago, Mr. Stanisław Tokarczuk, a history teacher in Lubin, arranged for a memorial for Lt. Sconiers, and the people of Lubin have taken great interest in the bombardier’s story. Hopefully, updates will follow on the progress of his return to his native Florida where his niece has already arranged for a catalpa tree to be placed at his new burial site. And to his family’s delight and to the great relief of now 95-year-old Lt. General Clark, at the Air Force Academy, his fellow POW and friend will finally come home.

The pictures below illustrate the following:
1) Marilyn standing at Lt. Sconiers' gravesite.
2) The memorial for Sconiers, provided by the people of Lubin, Poland.
3) The former mental hospital where Sconiers was taken. It is now a Polish copper company.
4) Mr. Tokarczuk holds a pictures of Lt. Sconiers.
5) The chapel where Sconiers' body was held.
6) Pathway by the Memorial into the cemetary.
7) From the house in the distance, a German history teacher watched Sconiers' funeral in 1944.
8) Catalpa tree and lantern mark Sconiers' grave.
9) Large stork's nest on the way to Lubin, Poland. Storks migrate through Poland.











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Moosburger Zeitung Article - Translation

Here's a translation of an article concerning our trip, that appeared in the Moosburger Zeitung:

Click here to access a pdf of the German version of the article

Night marches in honor of their fathers Americans make a visit on the "Road to Sagan" and the ruins of Stalag VIIA in Moosburg.
They have flown thousands of miles in the heart of Europe's winter to finally make a 100 kilometer walk on foot : in the last ten days, children of former American prisoners of war followed the "Road to Sagan" in order to honor their fathers. At the end of World War II, the path they followed led from the Polish town of Sagan to the prisoner of war camp Stalag VIIA in Moosburg. Under the best care of Bernhard Kerscher, the Director of the Heimat-museum, they looked at, among other things, the remains of the former Wachbaracken in the Schlesierstrasse and also visited the memorial Oberreit. They call themselves "Kriegie Kids", and they have obviously listened intensely to the stories of their fathers, because the sons and daughters of former airmen Gore, Arnett, Bender, Burda, Keefe, Jeffers and Leary have a very good knowledge of past history. They had meticulously planned their trip on the "Road to Sagan”, which took them from the Polish city of Zagan, through the German towns of Spremberg, Dresden and Nuremberg, to their final destination in Moosburg.

It is there in Moosburg that, on April 29, 1945, their fathers lived one of the happiest moments of their lives – their deliverance from captivity. In January 1945, the Russian divisions had broken through the German defense lines and were rapidly advancing through Polish territory. Therefore the German Higher Command decided to evacuate Stalag Luft 3 in the Polish city of Sagan, so the 10,000 Allied airmen who were interned there wouldn’t be freed by the Russians.
Not in the least protected from the icy coldness of winter, hungry and freezing, the prisoners, in a long procession, walked in a westerly direction.
Some were put into Stalag XIIId after having reached Nuremberg, others, after a stop in Spremberg, made a 72-hour journey by truck to Stalag VII A in Moosburg. Nothing but misery awaited both groups in the utterly overcrowded camps. The trip for the "Kriegie Kids" was not that bad: Although they also marched 60 miles on foot through the Polish night, in order to experience, in the flesh, their fathers’ privations, at the end of their trek a bus was waiting for them to bring them back to their hotel. And while some wrapped themselves into authentic-looking "Aleutian Coats” or in khaki-colored blankets, others, especially the older ones, preferred thick boots and down coats. The cold didn’t diminish in any way the enthusiasm with which they wanted to honor their fathers.
The arrival in Moosburg was a little hectic: due to an error in communication the group had been announced for Tuesday. Fortunately, however, Bernhard Kerscher, Head of the Heimat-museum, was on the spot to greet the visitors when they knocked on the door on Monday morning. A translator was quickly found in the person of the newspaper “Moosburger Zeitung”’s Editorial Manager Karin Alt, who managed to give an answer to (almost) all the questions.
As Mr Kerscher was just a boy when the Americans liberated the camp, some questions couldn’t find a satisfactory answer, for example, from which side did the first American "tank" reach the Camp? That’s why Bernhard Kerscher told them a lot about his own recollections, things the guests had never heard before. The Americans in turn, reported how much their fathers had suffered from hunger and how disgusting were the six-legged nightly "co-habitants” in their sleeping quarters. How they shivered in the too desperately small latrines, where they had been advised to refrain from smoking, because any small spark in the gaseous atmosphere could have provoked an explosion.
It was with great joy that the visitors accepted the Stalag brochures and the beer mugs distributed by Mr Kerscher – souvenirs for the surviving fathers of participants, all in their eighties and nineties now. After a short lunch break, the group went to the Neustadt (New Town) part of the city, along the railroad tracks, towards a large wooden watchtower leading to the entrance of the former Camp. Along the present-day Sudeten-landstraße – the wartime Hauptstrasse, which divided the camp in two – they reached the Schlesierstraße. Here, of course, many photographs were taken of the three still standing “Wachbaracken”, the former watchtowers (”Goon boxes“), while some piece of brick or a pinch of dust were picked as a souvenir to take home. The American guests learned that the City Council is building a Stalag Museum, and that in future a renovation of the last wartime barracks will be undertaken. Some visitors were also amazed at how the New City had changed - many were not for the first time here. They told of an unforgettable stay at Martin Braun’s. He has made a lasting impression on the "Amis“ (Americans) with his warm cordiality, his hospitality and also with his skills in the art of magic.
Just a quick, short stop to visit the Memorial Fountain, in its winterly silence, before the tour ended with a visit to the memorial Oberreit. Eleven Americans had been buried in the former Stalag Cemetery, but soon after the war their remains had been brought to their homeland. The “Kriegie Kids” took leave of Moosburg with heartfelt thanks for the friendly reception in the city.
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Moosburg to Journey's End

On Monday, we arrived in Moosburg to find that the museum director and news reporters were expecting us on Tuesday. Fortunately, Karin Alt, one of the reporters, showed up and kindly translated for the director, Mr. Kerscher. Mr. Kerscher had been a young boy during the war and he still had vivid memories of Stalag VII-A and Patton's liberation of the camp. In the following video, he shared some information on the Red Cross parcels that were delivered to the prisoners.


Moosburg was a quaint little town with a beautiful church (see pictures) that is in very good shape. We all shopped at an open-air market after touring the church and then moved on to see the museum. Mr. Kerscher kindly gave each family that represented a POW held at Moosburg, a commemorative mug, and a book and copied handout on the camp. The museum, though small, is quite good with wonderful artifacts from Moosburg's early history and quite a bit from Stalag 7-A. They even had one of the wooden ships made by the Kriegies and one of the clandestine radios.

After touring the museum, we rode the bus out to the area where Stalag 7-A was located. There are still three barracks remaining, but sadly, they are destined to be torn down later this year. I wish there were funds available to restore one of them! They are stucko'd buildings with the original shutters, which have since been painted in bright colors. The area is low-income housing and the barracks house several apartments. A few of us entered to take pictures down the hall but were quickly ushered out by the translator who cautioned us to respect the residents' privacy (whoops!).

We said our good-byes to Mr. Kerscher and Karin Alt and drove on to Munich, tired but feeling that we had closure for the experience. Mr. Kerscher had described horrendous conditions at the camp in the last few months, with gross over-crowding. My father had arrived there just four days prior to Patton's liberation and he described being in the last tent and having only a shoe's-width between the men's bed rolls. I thank God that he didn't have to endure the situation long. In his memoirs, he is quick to describe the indomitable spirit of the Kriegies. He described a trip to the latrines where he saw the sign:

"Please do not throw cigarette butts into the latrines - it renders them almost un-smokable!"

After visiting the barracks site at Moosburg, we drove on to Munich for the last night of our trip. We had a German dinner and turned in, warn-out and ready for an early flight home the next morning.

We have made friends that we'll keep for life. We've walked (100 kilometers!) in our fathers' footsteps and seen the places they saw. We will never know the hardships they endured, but we have a greater appreciation for what they endured. To explain the motivation of our fathers, my father ended his memoirs with the following, quite appropriate quote from the 13th century Dominican friar, philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas:

"Those who wage war justly aim at peace... we go to war that we may have peace."

See updated pictures at: Forced March Trip Pictures

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From Spremberg to Moosburg

As I sit here recouping from jet lag, enjoying my morning coffee and bread with Johannesbeeren jam that I brought back from Germany, I will try to recapture the memories of the last days of our trip.

After leaving Spremberg on Saturday, we drove to Dresden. Hans had described the devistation, and while driving there, George pulled out a DVD for us to watch: "Dresden: An Epic Mini-Series" (2008). This is a very accurate collaborative production by the German Koch Vision and the BBC, that presents a fictional character's account of the bombings of the city and of London. Extras on the DVD include actual archival footage of the bombings that illustrate the amazing scope of the destruction to both Dresden and London. Prior to the war, Dresden was called the art capital of the world and it is once again a beautiful city, although residents report that it is nothing like it once was. Once in Dresden, we climbed to the top of the recently restored Lutheran Frauen Kirche to see a fantastic, open-air view of the city. We purchased brats and Dresden stollen (fruitcake) which was good, but not as good as my Grossmama's (Grandmother's), and we took pictures of the statue of Martin Luther in the square.

See pictures of the trip and
Read more about our trip to Nuremberg.


Later that day, we drove to Nuremberg. (You'll note on maps that the Germans spell the city name as Nurnberg, with an "umlaut" - two little dots - over the "u") Nuremberg is known as a city "of wit," where inventiveness and curiosity are fostered. Diane and I found miniature silver "funnels" at the information center that represent funneling knowledge into the bearer. That night and the next we stayed in a 700 year old hotel within the scenic walls of the Old City, - it was really quaint, comfortable, and had a great breakfast. (The Elch - The Elk)

Sunday morning Becky, Diane and I got up early and attended church at St. Lorenz. We hurried through the bitter cold on quiet cobblestone streets to arrive slightly late. This wouldn't have been a problem except that the small, early service was held in a tiny side chapel that had only three rows of pews. (I felt like I was upholding the family tradition when our tardiness meant that we had to sit in the front row.) The pastor spoke on the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-7), and I caught bits of his message to share with the others. He emphasized that while we often have "mountaintop experiences" in life, it is important to remember that God is with us in the valleys, too.

I am sure that my father was aware of God's presence during his days at Stalag 13-D. He shared that there was a rail marshalling yard very close to their barracks there, and that they could hear the Allied bombs whistle close overhead. After several close calls, he and his fellow Kriegies began to dig trenches with tin cans from their Red Cross parcels. At first, the German guards stopped them, but then one brought four shovels and they were allowed to continue. The reason became clear when the Kriegies ran out to the trenches during the next raid, only to find that the guards had jumped into the trenches ahead of them. They enlarged the trenches the next day.

To their credit, Nuremberg has a fantastic documentation center on the site of the former NAZI Party Rally Grounds, that chronicles the rise, reign and fall of the megalomaniac Hitler. My only criticism is that they have next to nothing to report on Stalag 13-D that lay at the outskirts of the grounds, and of which nothing remains. (It is now a residential neighborhood.) Early on, the site (labeled the S.A. Lager on their maps) housed Hitler's Youth Camp and other groups attending party rallys. Later, it housed prisoners of war and from January to April it housed Allied prisoners from other camps. Only two of the fathers represented by our group were here, the others all went directly from Spremberg to Moosburg after the march.

As a result of the scarcity of information, we (Wayne, Marilyn, and Kat, and Diane and I), had to do some in-depth sleuthing to figure out where our fathers had been. We looked at old and new maps that night to locate the train station where our fathers had arrived at Nuremberg and the location of the camp, and the next morning the others in the group were gracious enough to allow us to drive by the location. We ran down a small side street off Thomas Mann Strasse, and were amazed to find an information board that identified the site between the rail tracks as the former location where war prisoners (in particular, Russian prisoners) had arrived. We were thrilled and took pictures to remember the spot (see the picture link). We then drove another couple blocks to the site of the camp (at the corner of Glieswitzer and L streets). There are apartment buildings there now, but we were thrilled to stand on the site, none-the-less.

By the way, Nuremberg was the hometown of Renaissance artistic giant, Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528), the famous painter, printmaker and theorist who wrote on principles of mathematics, perspctive and ideal proportions. You may have seen one of his beautiful watercolor landscapes, block prints, or the famous rabbit that he painted. The rabbit is used as a motif all over the city. (Note to my daughter: After completing his term of apprenticeship, Dürer followed the common German custom of taking Wanderjahre in which the apprentice learns skills from artists in other areas, Since Dürer spent four years doing this, I guess you can call this semester's internship merely a start! :o)

From Nuremberg, we drove on to Moosburg, site of Stalag 7-A where all our fathers had been liberated by Patton's army. Wayne, Marilyn and Kat's father had traveled there earlier in the Spring of 1945 than our father had. Our father's group had left April 5th (the week after Easter that year) and had taken 20 days to get to Moosburg. Their Senior American Officer was stalling in hopes of a liberation by Allied troops - the German in charge of that march had finally threatened to exterminate them if they didn't get over the Danube River that night. Moosburg was horribly crowded when they arrived and in a state of disarray with (by some accounts) 110,000 prisoners crammed into and around the camp. Dad was in the last tent and was only there for part of four days before Patton's arrival.

Later today, I'll post more pictures and a recount of our time in Moosburg and the final day in Munich.

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Three months of increasing chaos at Stalag VII A - then liberation.

On the morning of the 7th of February, 1945, a train screached to a halt outside of the German POW camp in Bavaria named Stalag VII A and 2000 POWs emerged from filthy, fouled box cars. For the men of Center Compound, room in the main camp wasn't ready yet so they filed into a separate enclosure at the north end of camp, notoriously known as "The snake pit." Two days later, after representatives of the Swiss Red Cross chewed out the German officals during a "tour" of the snake pit for the disgusting filthy conditions these allied officer prisoners were subjected to, Center Compound as taken into the main camp - with a stop off at the local delousing building. Once in the main camp they were marched to a wired enclosure in the south-east section that contained four large wooden barracks ridden with lice, fleas and bedbugs. The 2000 men of South Compound were already established in another wired enclosure to the east of Center Compound.


Just a few days later, the POWs of Center Compound went on strike due to the terrible conditions with the latrine (abort) in their enclosure. Read more on that encounter from Lt. Keeffe's diary:

"Diary Entry

Stalag VIIA, Moosburg, Sunday (11 Feb.)

Today we all (2,000) went on strike. Conditions here have gone from bad to worse. Last night the stools in the abort overflowed onto the floor -- the urinals overflowed, too, and the mess
is about two inches deep on the inside of the building; and consequently has run out the doors and covered a considerable area of the grounds. Most of us are still sick with diarrhea, and now
there’s nothing to do but act like animals. The Goons ordered us to fall in for Appell this morning, and we refused. As a result they brought in troops armed with machine guns -- as well as several of their police dogs. They again ordered us to fall in and again we refused to do so. The Goon Hauptman was in a rage. He wanted to order his men to fire on us, but didn’t dare to -- we were officers, and more than that, the war wasn’t too far from its conclusion. After about three hours of parleying, they finally agreed to clean up our barracks and the Abort. With these promises we formed and submitted to an Appell. We have no coal or wood, either for heating the barracks or for cooking our food. We receive one cup of hot water a day per man --- all other water is cold -- and as a result of these conditions, most of us still have diarrhea, and many cases of the flu have been noted. I only hope and pray that we don’t catch typhus. The Goons will furnish us no medical supplies. Most of us are lousy with fleas, lice, and bed bugs. The camp at Sagan was a paradise compared to this place." (end of diary entry)

Several weeks later, portions of West Compound arrived at VII A and large white tents were errected in the enclosure where Center Compound was to accomodate them. By this time some of the German guards were beginning to desert as it was becoming evident that their side was losing the war. Conditions in the wooden barracks were so bad that Lt. Keeffe, and a few other POWs, took some of the extra barrack doors and made a door tent outside, and there they lived until elements of General Patton's 3rd Army liberated Stalag VII A the morning of the 29th of April, 1945.
(Lt. Keeffe on left cranking a hand-made kriegie stove, with Lt Andy Anderson holding a mug)

Tanks of the U.S. Army 47th Tank Battalion, 14th Armored Division, were seen coming over the low hills to the north around 9am that morning and the German SS put up a sharp, but futile defense. Within about an hour all the SS soldiers were dead and while the main thrust of the 47th Tank Bn, along with infantry from B Company, 68th Armored Infantry Bn, raced through the town of Moosburg to secure the Isar River where the Germans had already blown the only bridge, a lone GI tank, followed by a jeep and a couple of canvas covered trucks, smashed through the front gate of Stalag VII A and liberated the camp to the cheers of tens of thousands of wildly joyful POWs.



Sixty fours years later the grown-up kids of 15 of those liberated POWs ventured back to the site of Stalag VII A. The following picture shows all of us in the Moosburg Museum behind a mock-up of the POW camp which is just 1 1/2 kilometers north of town. The site is now a housing development, but a couple old barracks remain and are used as low-income housing.


* Click on any of the pictures for a larger view.
** For the definitive account of the liberation of Stalag VII A, click here. The 14th Armored Division was aptly named "The Liberators."

Cheers - Jim Keeffe, III
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Trinity Students February 1, 2009

Today was a relatively quiet day. My sister and I went to St. Lorenz Lutheran Church in Nuremberg. We went at 8:30 am and the service was in a small chapel. The service was in German, but I could recognize the Gospel reading, Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. We sang 2 songs that I knew in English. After the service, we spoke with the pastor. He spoke very good English. He said that the 10:00 service would be in the large nave using the huge pipe organ. We said we were disappointed that we didn't get to hear it, so the organist played some on the pipe organ for us. WOW! The church was huge, but the organ filled it. If you have ever seen "The Sound of Music", it reminded me of when Maria married the Captain and she walked down that long aisle to organ music. The information that the church had in the back told that it cost the congregation 380,000 Euros a year just for maintenance!

Read more about the day.

After church, we went to Hitler's Documentation Center. One of the prison camps Mr. Bender was in (the very worst one with fleas) was on this property. We couldn't find anyone who knew too much about it, except that it was there. Some of our friends got a little more information about it and we will try to drive by where it was in the morning as we leave Nuremberg. We did spend several hours going through the exhibits in the Documentation Center, learning how Hitler built his regime. It was a very interesting and sobering afternoon.

I made a mistake in my post yesterday, our hotel is 700 years old!!!

Tomorrow we will leave for Moosburg, our last stop. This was where the POWs were when they were liberated by General Patton's men. We will be having a press conference with 2 newspapers and we will tour the site. Then we will travel to Munich. On Tuesday morning, I leave for home!

God's Blessings to all of you!
Mrs. Maurer
To see pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures, click here
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End of the long march then cram them on box cars.

George Bruckert, Becky Lawson, and Val Burgess walking toward the entrance of the Wehrmacht Panzer maintenance grounds.

Val, Jim and George standing at Spremberg rail platform.

A string of 40 & 8 box cars waiting to be loaded with POWs at Spremberg rail yards.

Our dads had no idea where they were being taken. The two thousand POWs of Center Compound had been on the road for nine days by the time they trudged into the railway yard at the eastern edge of Spremberg, Germany. Somewhere along the line the men of East Compound had passed through them as they were resting on the side of the road. South, West and North compounds had already arrived in Spremberg, but were headed south on the rails. Not stopping at the train station, the long column of men of Center Compound was turned northward and taken to a German Wehrmacht Panzer maintenance and training facility and fed some soup. All the tanks were gone - probably fighting the Russians on the eastern front - but there was a small contingent of German soldiers left to control the facility. The POWs were then herded into the tank storage barns and rested for a couple hours. Rousted up again they were formed up into a long column once more and marched back down to the train station where a line of box cars was waiting. Crammed inside they endured four days of misery before arriving at Moosburg, Bavaria, at their final destination - Stalag VIIA.

Read more on the experience as related by my dad, Lt James Keeffe, on his experience in the box cars, beginning with an entry in his diary he kept by writing on the paper liner of cigarette packs:

Diary Entry

On the train, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. (4,5,6,7 Feb)

On Sunday we marched the 7 km into Spremberg, ate some barley soup at a Wehrmacht training garage and were then marched through the town to the railroad station where we were herded into French 40 Hommes and 8 Chevaux cars. This war, however, they’re putting 50 of us Kriegies into one boxcar with two guards. The ensuing three days were as close to Hell as I have yet been. It rained for two days -- the roof leaked -- most of the fellows were sick with dysentery, chilblaines, or bad colds. During the three day trip we received only 7/10 of a loaf of bread per man, and water was officially passed out only twice. At each stop we traded our cigarettes and soap for bread and water. No one slept, except for those who passed out from sheer exhaustion because there wasn’t room for more than half of us, had we all tried to lie down. We have lost all semblance to civilized beings. We’re filthy dirty, unshaved, and many of us have picked up lice and fleas. All the clean clothes we had are now filthy dirty…

(from a later interview of Lt. Keeffe)
Printed on the side of each box car was Hommes 40, Chevaux 8, which translates to “40 persons or 8 horses.” These things were dirty. The two guards who hopped up into our box car after cramming us inside had two apple boxes to sit on. We had a filthy floor.

After awhile, the train began to move, probably around 6 o’clock. It took a long time to deal with 2,000 people. We were on those box cars maybe three nights. It was really tough, because many guys were sick. It was dirty and it was filthy and cruddy.

When we all first got into the box car the guards sat by the door, which was a sliding door on the outside, and they swung their rifles in an arc and told us to stay back. We very rapidly arranged to have one third of the guys standing, one third of the guys sitting down with their legs spread and the next guy sitting in the open legs with his back on the chest of the fellow behind him. The last third, the sick guys, were able to lie down. We rotated standing and sitting every-so-often so that we wouldn’t cramp up too much.

All during the night and into the next day guys were vomiting and had diarrhea, and there wasn’t one bucket to be had. We told the guards to open the doors, to let some fresh air in and to at least let the sick guys get sick hanging outside. They took their rifles and swung them.
“Nein, nein nein! Streng verboten!" (No, no no! Strictly forbidden!)

One of the Kriegies spoke good German, and we had quickly formed a hierarchy. That’s one of the good things about having been military. This hierarchy resulted in the German-speaking American prisoner talking to the guards.

“You’re going to open the doors, and you’re going to throw those damn boxes out. You’re going to put those damn guns down, and you’re going to have the same amount of space as we do, which is not much. Or, you’re going to shoot us. Now, you have bolt action rifles, and we’ll let each of you get off two shots. That’s a total of four shots. We’ll even let you, with those four shots -- we’ll let you kill two. Four times two is eight, so at the most you’re going to be able to kill eight people. Then we’re going to take you apart ear by ear, joint by joint, eyeball by eyeball. And you’ve got one minute to decide what to do."

The two guards, upper middle-aged older guys, were pretty shook up with the force of words that came their way. They put their heads together and spoke quickly to each other. Then they pleaded with us and they started crying.

"Please don’t hurt us, we’re just following orders."

"We won’t hurt you, just open the damn door!"

With that, the two soldiers quickly unlatched the door and pushed it all the way open, and we threw their apple boxes out. They were then told to put their rifles down, and we got along just fine.

Over the next couple of days the train stopped two or three times, and we all got out and dropped our pants. It was quite a sight. Every time we stopped, all 2,000 of us got out of the train, and there were 2,000 of us crapping on Germany. At one rail yard we stopped and right along side us was a similar train. The engine and box cars were filled with German soldiers. We were allowed off, as usual, to relieve ourselves, and some of us exchanged stuff with the soldiers. We gave them some of our canned food, and they gave us some of their canned food. They were SS troops, probably headed toward the front somewhere.

One night, we stopped short of some big town, which may have been Nurnberg. During the night the English bombed the hell out of that town, and we could clearly hear the bomber stream come and go and the explosions of the tons of bombs that fell.

We spent three nights on that train in the box cars as it traveled through the country. Most every one of us was wrapped in our own individual miserable, cold, hungry, lonely world. I was absolutely the filthiest I had ever been in my life. The miles and hours of the constant noise of the box car moving down the rails, mixed with rain leaking through the cracks in the wood, other just-as-miserable men getting sick on themselves and others, all fed into the misery and turned those three days into a numb haze. Three days is an eternity under such conditions.

Traveling southwest the train eventually reached the city of Munich, and then it came back northeast to a town called Moosburg.
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Trinity Students January 31, 2009

Wow, each day brings more interesting and exciting things. As we left the hotel in Spremberg this morning, we met a man who had been 11 years old at the time of the march. He vividly remembered the POWs coming in that cold winter and he helped to feed them soup. He met us at the railroad station (the one for loading baggage) and showed us where our fathers got in the boxcars. He was as excited as we were to talk about it. He had a friend who had been a German prisoner who was held in Arkansas. He brought a carving of an eagle that his friend had made while he was a prisoner and also a pocket watch his friend had bought. He wanted us to have them. We will try to find a museum that could use some things about the German POWs.

Then we went to Dresden. What a beautiful city. In one of the main parts of the city is a statue of Martin Luther. Dresden was very heavily bombed in February, 1945 and one of the casualties was a huge Lutheran Church. For many years they left it in rubble as a reminder of the war, but then decided to rebuild. They used computers and archeologists to figure out where some of the stones they still had should go. Now the church is rebuilt. You can tell which stones are originals, because they are black, because they were burned in firestorms.

It was a long bus ride to Nurmberg but I am very excited about being here. Our hotel is in a 500 year old building inside the walls of the "old city". The streets look just like the town in the flannelgraph we use to tell the story of Martin Luther in school. Tomorrow we will try to go to church at one of the Lutheran Churches here. We have a big job, though. No one is sure where Stalag 13D was located. Of all the people on the trip, only 2 fathers were held here, so we have our work cut out for us.

I hope the academic team did their best today. I was thinking of them!

More tomorrow--God's Blessings!
Mrs. Maurer
To see pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures, click here
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Spremberg Surprises

Hans Burkhardt & Richard, after Richard had given him a hat from Alaska.

We stayed at the Hotel Stadt Spremberg last night and it was very nice. At dinner we celebrated with champagne. When we were leaving the hotel this morning, Richard saw an older man with a British air force jacket on and Jim said, "Let's go talk to him." A few moments later I was summoned for my German. We discovered that Hans Burkhardt, a Spremberg resident, had been eleven years old in 1945 and he remembers well when the POWs from Stalag Luft III arrived in Spremberg to be loaded onto boxcars after their long march.

Hans is 79 and his family had given food and water to some of the prisoners. He accompanied us to the train station where our fathers had waited in the cold to board the boxcars. Hans said that in 1945 they had had deep snow and very cold temperatures for two weeks around the time of the march. He said that when the Kriegies arrived in Spremberg, it was around -26 Celcius. That's about -14.8 degrees Fahrenheit! He said that big groups of prisoners would arrive about every two hours and that many had to stand in the cold for hours waiting for the next train. Hans said he saw only two soldiers with gloves on and all the rest were rubbing their hands and trying to stay warm. (The German name for the prisoners was "Kriegsgefangenen" and the POWs shortened it to "Kriegies.")

We were so blessed to find Hans, because we were headed for the wrong train station and might not ever have seen the place where the Kriegies boarded the cars. Just down the road from the station he pointed out the site of the tank works factory where some of our fathers slept prior to departing on the train. There is nothing there now. Hans also mentioned that he had seen the bombing of Dresden and that the city was nearly obliterated. He emphasized over and over that war is a terrible thing - it must be a horrible experience to live through a war on your own soil, and see all that you know and love destroyed. Today we will see the Lutheran church in Dresden that was painstakingly restored and was finally finished in 2005.

Hans shared that he had a friend who was a solider in the German army, was captured and was sent to Arkansas as a prisoner of war. While there, his friend had carved a wooden plaque with the head of an eagle. His friend, Ervin Vorssatz, had seen many bald eagles while in the POW camp there in Arkansas. He also had a pocket watch that his friend had purchased while in Arkansas. Hans brought tears to my eyes as he gave us the plaque and watch. We will try to discover where Ervin was a prisoner in Arkansas. From what he said, we think it must have been in eastern Arkansas along the Mississippi River.

I sat right down to write out what I remembered of our morning as we drove to Dresden. For a good hour, I struggled with tears as I thought about the fact that here was a man who could very well have seen and helped my father during that horrid, cold march.

See more pictures at: Forced March Trip Pictures
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Day 4 - Last Day of the march

This morning we were SO looking forward to Spremberg! We thought we would be walking (hobbling) about 14 miles, ending at Spremberg. HOWEVER, once again, it was further than we thought. Today we walked 17.5 miles. You can click on the map here to see a larger version of our father's route. Note that since this area was alternately German and Polish, there are both German and Polish names for each town.

We will continue to upload more pictures every day. (Note new video under Day 3, below.) Read on for more concerning our last day of the march...

Tomorrow we will go by bus from Spremberg to Dresden to see the restored areas - much has been repaired since Dresden was bombed by the Allied forces.
See the new pictures here: SLIII Forced March Trip

As my sister described below, she and I kept each other going today by singing. We sang songs from our childhood, which seemed most appropriate for the occasion. We not only attempted to honor our father through our footsteps but also with our voices, as we sang songs that he and my mother had taught us: "Come to the Church in the Wild Wood," "Silent Night, Holy Night," and even "A Cannibal King." :o) We also pooled our memories to sing all the Rogers and Hammerstein songs we had sung over the years. By this point, my feet hurt so much I was attempting to place them flat-footed on the ground with as little ankle movement as possible to avoid disturbing the already-popped blisters on my heels. Evelyn has been referring to me as "Sister Miriam" because of the black balaclava I've been wearing over my hair. I'm sure if we had been in a more populated area, the locals would have wondered at these strangely-dressed women, singing in a foreign language and walking in the stilted manner typical of a two-year-old who didn't quite make it to the bathroom in time.

So how do I describe the sense of accomplishment I feel? It is surpassed only by the relief at finishing the march reenactment. The others feel the intense relief as well, and once again, the emotions were running high at dinner as we drank champagne and apfelsaft (applejuice) to celebrate the occasion. I am sure our fathers were relieved that they were done with the walking when they reached the train station in Spremberg, but the horror of their journey would continue. The days they would spend in the crowded, fetid boxcars with no facilities but no "bathroom breaks," and the months to come in seriously over-crowded camps (Stalag 13-D at Nuremberg and Stalag 7-A at Moosburg), would surpass the suffering of the march. I am so grateful for the sacrifices my father made, and those made by men like him. I pray that there will always be those who are willing to do what is necessary to preserve the freedoms we too often take for granted!
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Trinity Students January 30, 2009

WE ARE FINISHED!! We walked over 60 miles, but we are now in Spremberg. Today, we started in Bad Muskau and saw the site of a glass factory and some other factories that sheltered the POWs. There was also a castle there. Our walk was much more dangerous than other days, because the road was very busy and Germans drive fast! Finally, there was a bike path and we could use that. Our feet hurt and we have blisters on our blisters, but it was worth it. My sister and I walked together for a lot of the way and we sang songs to keep us going. It also helped us to keep a good pace. I taught her "God is #1" and she liked it.

We will begin early tomorrow, because we want to visit some places the POWs stayed in Spremberg and the railroad station where they were loaded into boxcars. Then we will travel by bus to Dresden and finally Nuremberg.
I wish good skill to the Academic Teams as they compete this weekend!
Mrs. Maurer

To see pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures, click here
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And after a few days

Tuesday - I will work to spell everything correctly. We visited Belaria first thing this morning. Jacek, the director of the museum, has been incredible showing us around and getting things in order for us to march. Mariann Leary's father was held in Belaria which is located about 3 km from the main camp. No one knows exactly where the barracks were located or if the barns that now exist were where the men were held. The photos should give you an idea of what it was like. I will upload them later.

We also visited the Bismarck water tower that was build in the 1800s. Very cool. See the photo. From this tower we came back to the prison camp and visited East compound. This was primarily a British or RAF camp. It housed approximately 1600 prisoners. It was the first compound with fewer barracks. From there we walked west to Center compound. This is the site of block 43 (compound), combine (room) 7 that housed my Uncle Vernon Burda and Jim Keeffe. The rooms were called combines as they merged their food resources that were limited. The men were then able to have better nutrition although continually meager. We saw the kitchen, fire pool, and stood where our loved ones once stood.

Zagan, Poland was once Sagan, Germany. It was first mentioned in 1202. Today it is a town of 50,000 people on the Bobr River, a tributary of the Odra River in Silesia. Astronomer Johannes Kepler, had an observatory here. Today you can visit the library with books from the 1200s. Kepler was the man that said our orbit was elliptical. Interesting that today we know that he is right. Silesia's sandy soil is the resource for many brick and glass factories in the area.

This group is the first American group to complete this march. The British bring a contingent every year. January 18-19 a group of RAF completed the march. We don't know the details and will find out so we can compare to our march.

Last night we left the museum at 11:00 and headed for the gate at South Compound. It was a great hike unlike that of our family members. We made good time and completed the 9.73 miles by 2:30. Nine miles was relatively easy. Up relatively early, we left for Przewoz (Priebus in German). By the time we had marched a few kilometers into Itowa, visited a grade and middle school and hit the road, it was late. We are the first Americans to visit the school.

Wednesday - Prewoz. We finished our time on the road by 7PM and had completed 18.79 miles. It was grueling and sleep didn't come soon enough. I for one was very sore. Please remember that the South Compound had marched straight through to Bad Muscau with rest stops but no overnight stays. It is unimaginable to me how they could have done that, however those of us honoring our relatives are over 50. Considering that we have done quite well.

Thursday - Today, after visiting another school, we left Priebus and walked approximately 14 miles to Bad Muscau. Here the prisoners were held at several factories in and near the city. The prisoners were able to rest for 2-3 days dependent on the compound you called home at Luft III. Physically, it was a great day on roads near fields and forests. There was little traffic and perfect temperature. It was 30º F, no wind. I changed my shoes and was grateful. The POWs didn't have this option and many had inferior shoes and clothes. My "Great Coat" has been a blessing as have my wool pants, shirt and Eisenhower jacket.

Tomorrow we walk approximately 15 miles to Spremberg. The men were put in 40/8 train cars (40 men/8 horses) and were shipped south. We will go south by bus. We will finish our march and will head south.
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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

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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:





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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
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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
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We Begin the Forced March

Last night at 11:00 pm local time, we began the forced march. We marched 9 long miles last night from Luft III to Illowa, Poland. Then today, we marched an even longer 18 miles to Przewoz, Poland (previously Priebus, Germany). OOOOHHHH! How our feet ache! Tomorrow... another 14 miles.

You can view pictures from our trip at the following link:

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Trinity Students

I have not been able to get online, and I am not sure whether I will be able to tomorrow, so please bear with me. Yesterday, we toured the site of another prison camp, visited the 100 year old Bismark water tower in Zagan, and went back to the site of my dad's barracks. After checking into our hotel, we went to have dinner and a restaurant called Kepler's. Johannes Kepler was an astronomer and astrologer who discovered the laws of planetary motion. He used his belief in God and what he had learned in religion as the basis of many of his theories. He was also a Lutheran.
We went back to the museum at Stalag Luft III and watched a DVD that the brother of three of the people on our march made about their dad. Then, at 11 pm, we started walking. Boy was it dark! I can't imagine what it must have been like with 10,000+ men! We got to our hotel (in the town where the men stopped the first night) at about 2:30 am. We were up by 8:00 and walked into the town.
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We were so fortunate to be able to visit a school there. It was for 9-12 year olds. Several of the girls who were taking English class took us around. Students are the same around the world. The principal even had to tell a young man not to run in the hallway! The students were anxious to tell us about their school because it was named for one of the men that stayed in the town that first night. There were pictures of the march in their hallway. I took lots of pictures to show you.
After our visit, we went to the church where many of the men slept that first night. Mr. Bender started out there, but his friends, knowing he didn't have many warm things, came and got him and took him to a barn where they shared their blankets.
Then it was off to march some more. We walked a total of 18.79 miles today!!! My feet really hurt, and I am tired, but I am so glad I made it. Tomorrow we start out and should walk about 13 miles. Friday we will finish the march.
I understand that you haven't had school for 2 days!! I can't believe I missed some Snow Days!
When I am able to connect to the internet again, I will write more.
Mrs. Maurer

To see pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures, click here
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Jan. 27-28: On the Road Our Fathers Traveled

Internet access has been difficult. Here's what Miriam wrote two days ago:

The cold mist hung like a grey curtain about twenty feet above the ground. It wasn't the greatest for pictures of distant landmarks, but then, there weren't many there to view in the midst of the silent field surrounded by fairly-new-growth forest. Each footfall made a jarring crunch in the mid-afternoon quiet, leaving deep prints that gave three-dimensional testimony to our pilgrimage. Our group of sixteen advanced tentatively, not quite sure of what we would find and how we would react to it. Our guide, Jasek (pronounced "yaa-sick"), led us out into the field carrying maps of Stalag Luft III camp as it was in 1945. We listened with interest as Jasek described the metal cross erected to honor the dead from Napoleon's army. As I (Miriam) finished reading the English translation on the board mounted to describe the memorial to Napoleon's fallen, I was suddenly yanked back to the present as the others called to my sister and me, "Miriam! Diane! This is it - this is where your father lived!"

What a shock to suddenly be faced with personal history amidst the still of the clearing. Jasek was speaking in his thick Polish accent, "This is where barracks 158 was located; where Bender was in combine 13." My sister and I hurried forward, looking about for some sign of the barrack, some evidence that our father had struggled to live here with others like him, for over eight hard months during the war. There was no sign. It was an empty field. We were informed that the West Compound had been cleared very soon after the camp was evacuated, to serve as athletic fields for the Russians who occupied the camp for years through the Cold War. Someone found a brick and then my sister found another. We were told that these were most likely from the foundation pile-ons under the barracks. We would keep them as a memento of our father's history. The others took pictures of us standing on the site of barracks 158, and then the group moved on to find the next former residence. We lingered, taking pictures of the field, turning round to take in the view our father saw then, so many years ago. Marveling at the beauty of the white birch trunks framed by tall pines, cognizant of the fact that his view was much less scenic and included barbed wire fencing and guard towers. We stopped to photograph a stump, as my sister remembered our father relating how many he had removed under the direction of the NAZI soldiers.

We hurried on to catch up with the group. The other sites included many more remnants of foundations and structures, yielding mementos for the others that they clutched eagerly. Some of us still had our fathers, but others had lost theirs within the last decade. Emotions hung in the air like the mist, but at each site, the group encouraged and hugged the person whose father had lived in that barracks. As we moved from site to site, taking pictures and searching for mementoes took on an almost religious quality. We were honoring our fathers - both those still living and those who had passed on. We were on a pilgrimage; a journey. A journey of love...
The link to pictures is here
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Update for Trinity Students

Hello!
I had quite a day today. We started out at 7:30 for Sagan, Poland. The bus driver we were supposed to have wasn't able to drive our bus, so we got a new driver. The BIG problem is --he doesn't speak English. His primary language is Polish. They assured us that he spoke German though, but it is still a big effort to communicate. My sister speaks some German so with that and lots of pointing, we got to Sagan.

WOW, what an experience! First we went to see a film about the camp, with footage taken when our father was there. Then we toured the museum. There we saw lots of things that had been excavated from the camp. We saw a water pitcher like the one Mr. Bender told us about, plus checkers, chess pieces, cards, tools, barbed wire, etc. Then we went to a building that was recently built by the RAF, just like the ones the prisoners lived in, except not as many rooms. We saw the types of beds they had, the tables they made into sleds, the little stoves they had to keep them warm, and some things they took on the march. In addition to rebuilding a barracks, they built a section of tunnel like the one in "The Great Escape. " We could crawl down in it and see how they excavated it. There was also a "goon tower" (guard tower) we could climb. Then we loaded the bus again and headed a short distance to where the actual camp had been. There are only foundations of buildings left, but the guide was able to show each of us exactly where our dads' barracks had been. It was very moving to stand there and know that he had spent many months right at that location. My sister and I each picked up a memento to remember it. It was very touching to see the others' reaction to their dad's barracks. Of the 16 people on the march, there are only 2 others besides Miriam and myself whose fathers are still alive. Everyone has stories they have been told over the years and we have been sharing them constantly. At the location of the North Compound, we saw where Tunnel Harry was actually located and where the men came up, just a bit too short of the woods. Our final stop for the day was at the memorial for the 50 men from the Great Escape who were ordered to be killed by Hitler because they had escaped.

I am so blessed that my dad survived the parachute drop, survived the camp and the march and came home. God was certainly watching out for him! Please say a prayer for us about 4 pm your time tomorrow (11 pm our time) because that will be the time that we begin our walk.
As I am writing this, Flat Stanley is sleeping. He had an exhausting day--wait until you see the pictures! Keep up with him at the following link: Flat Stanley's Travels
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Monday, January 25, 2009

Hey everyone,
We had breakfast in Berlin at 7AM and loaded the bus to head for Zagan, Poland. We traveled for about 4 hours through what was once East German, some large and small Polish towns and got to the prison camp at about 12:30. We viewed the museum, watched a video - very good video, climbed up into the guard tower (exhibit tower in front of museum), climbed into a sample tunnel and then headed to the prison camp. We went to the north, south and west compounds and found what was once the family members barracks. We saw what were once fire pools, barracks, kitchens, and a concrete path that marked the "Great Escape" tunnel. It had engraved stones with all of the Great Escapers names placed near the concrete path.

There were 76 that escaped even though they had hoped to get 200 out that evening. Of the 76 that were out, 50 were captured and murdered; 23 were recaptured and taken to camps throughout the region and only 3 got home. The men in the camp stalled being counted to help the men that were out get as far away from the prison camp as possible. This escape caused nearly 1 million Germans to be pulled off the front lines to find the escaped prisoners. Hitler was very angry and wanted to kill all of them. Hermann Goehring told Hitler that they couldn't kill them all as the Allies also held German prisoners.

Tomorrow I will attempt to call at 2PM for a live feed if possible. We will go to the Center Compound and Belaria that is a ways away from the main camp. We will then travel to the next town where some of the POWs rested in a church. It is a town called Itowa (say Ewauva. We will store our gear there and will return to the camp and will march out tomorrow night at 11PM. We will walk 9 miles and in the morning will give a program to the grade school kids at the Cahtolic school in Ilowa. We will then head out in the afternoon and will walk an additional 15 miles.

I will try to upload some photos this evening. Val
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Students following Flat Stanley to Stalag Luft III

We have a variety of interest groups following this blog, including K-8 students at Trinity Lutheran School in former POW Ed Bender's hometown. Flat Stanley has been enjoying accompanying Ed's two daughters, Mrs. Maurer (principal of Trinity) and Mrs. Larson (tutor at Knoxville CC).

Flat Stanley has been enjoying site-seeing in Berlin, taking in the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag (German Parliament building), and Checkpoint Charlie (crossing point at the site of the Berlin Wall that used to separate East and West Germany during the Cold War). He is bored with shopping, though! :o)

While visiting Checkpoint Charlie, Flat Stanley got very disturbed because the Germans appeared to be misspelling Mrs. Maurer's name (he didn't understand that there is a German word "Mauer" that means "wall").

To see pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures, click here
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January 24, 2009 - 9:39 PM

The rest of our group came in today. We are now 15 strong. We left here after noon and went to the German Resistance Memorial Center. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (Valkyrie) was killed by firing squad there in 1944. The movie Valkyrie that is now playing with Tom Cruise is about the people in 1944 that attempted to kill Hitler with a bomb. The order was called Valkyrie and had the home guard protect Berlin. At any rate there were many, many people involved with this attempt. Claus was shot by firing squad in the square surrounded by this museum as he was instrumental in the effort to kill Hitler. The museum shows the many that were involved. It would have only been better had all of the displays been completed in English. It was however pretty easy to understand what was being said. I am hoping to upload some images tomorrow to show you all the places we have seen. Lots of WWII history has been found by this group.

We spent quite a few hours in this museum and then walked to Checkpoint Charlie (CC) - the dividing point between East and West Berlin. I had my photo taken with two soldiers at CC. The museum was very commercialized and we decided to skip it as they wanted nearly 12.5 EU per person and decided the first museum was better and was free. We didn't go to the CC museum.

We also viewed another outdoor museum related to the Gestapo, SS then the Berlin wall and the difficulties of living in a divided city. It was called ? of Terror and the Gestapo and SS originally had their offices in the building that now longer exists at this sight. The Wall is just outside this open air display with images of East German soldiers helping children through the barbed wire. It is said that over 5,000 East German guards escaped into West Berlin. In fact there is a photo of a guard climbing over the barbed wire. Interesting.

We have seen a great deal of this history and am grateful to be able to relive it in some way. Tomorrow we go to Stalag Luft III. Only the rooms on this side of the pension work on wireless so everyone is in our room or in the hallway talking to family on Skype or emailing to their families. We all went to dinner at Schoerr Cafe. I had roast duck with dumplings and red cabbage. Jerry had schnitzel with potatoes and peas and carrots. And the ice cream was great!

Tomorrow morning we are on the bus by 7:30 am and head to Poland. Our bus driver who spoke English is ill so we now have one that speaks German and Polish. We can communicate with hands and one of us speaks decent German so we should be ok. We will be at the prison camp and walk the five compounds, view the museum, guard tower, great escape tunnel remains, fire pits, and cooler. We will get to spend time in the barracks recently constructed by the British at the museum at the prison camp. We will also tour sites in the area - like the barns at Grosselton (big U shaped barns with the old boarded up manor house). On the forced march, the first men out, the south compound were able to rest here for a few hours. We then return to Zagan and head out at ll:00 PM on the 27th to do the first nine miles. I thought we had a day in between the final 15 miles but it looks like our schedule will be 9, 15, 13, 16 then on to Nuremberg by bus.

That is a day ahead of you as it is now 9:34 PM on Sunday. I will attempt to download some images tonight and will post some tomorrow. Be well. Happy days ahead. Val

I am going to close so I can go to bed and rest up for the next few days. Be well. Val
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A Day in Berlin

It was a great day. Up and to breakfast by 9:30 and then we were off. We (Evelyn, Kirk, Jer and I) went on a hop-on, hop off tour of the city. We saw Checkpoint Charlie that allowed people back and forth across the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was erected immediately after WWII and divided a city. Anyone on the East side was now East German and those on the western side were West German. It happened overnight that the wall was erected. It was originally wooden posts covered in barbed wire. It later became flat concrete walls with a round (30cm) top so it was hard to climb over. The Soviets controlled the East and that also meant the city was surrounded by the Soviet's East. This control forced the Allies to airlift food and supplies into West Berlin for many years. Some pilots dropped candy bars to the children. It was a city divided from 1945 until October 3, 1989 when the wall came down. I have read that WWII was finally over when it did. About 150+ people were killed attempting to get over the wall. Those most successful at completing this task were the guards. It was dangerous as they were shot and because there was a large area called no-mans land, it was difficult to escape East Berlin.

We saw some amazing architecture. And I mean architecture. I will send some photos tomorrow. We saw San Soucci palace and they have a l'orangerie. We saw the Reichstag (the parliament building - where the Nazis made their last stand against the Allies and continued the war for two extra days. You can see places where they have patched the facade of the old stone. It is where bullet holes and shrapnel marred the surface. We saw churches that were bombed out by the war and left as a memorial so people remember. Today you can follow the route of the Berlin Wall and see exactly where it divided the city. The wall is marked by irregular red stones planted in the ground as marker. In some places the stone line goes right through a newly-built building. At the Reichstag there is a huge open plaza. There are new government buildings. The Reichstag has the old facade and has a contemporarily built interior and new stories. The Germans have added an additional floor and there is a glass dome in the middle that is so avant garde. Hopefully in a short while I will add some photos so you can see it. Before we went to the Reichstag, We visited the Brandenburger Gate. It signifies years of war history. Napoleon stole the statue on the top. I am not certain when it was returned. Great shots of the gate and the area surrounding it. The gate was a place the East Germans could see but never cross over. There is more history that I will share later.

We also went to Checkpoint Charlie (CPC) where people were allowed to cross into West Berlin. It still stands in the middfe of the road and has soldiers out front although it is only for show. There are museums all around CPC. We will go back there tomorrow. Before we got to Brandenberger Gate, we saw a memorial for the Jewish people killed in the Holocaust. It is over 3,000 concrete stones that fill this square. We saw it before it got dark so don't know what it would look like lit. I am attaching some photos of it as well.

Tomorrow we hope to go to the Jewish Museum. The architecture is amazing and we will go back to Checkpoint Charlie and view this museum. Tonight we met up with Miriam and Diane and went to an Italian restaurant. They are great people and I am grateful to meet them. Tomorrow the rest come in. We lost Mark Arnet as he is ill and cannot make it. So our number stands at 15.

Sunday - We are now at Einstein's Coffee house. It is about 10 am and we are going sightseeing again. I had hoped to download images from the camera but must first download the software. Hopefully we can get them posted later today.
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Day 1 - Touring the WWII Sites in Berlin

Several of the Kriegie Kids took bus tours yesterday to become familiar with the sites in Berlin. I can't tell you how many times we heard the words "That was destroyed in the Second World War." According to the tour guide over 80% of Berlin was destroyed during the war. As a result, the architecture in Berlin features a great number of 1960's and 70's style buildings. We will post a picture of the group later today. Berlin is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.


The link to more pictures is here
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Typical Route of a WWII Stalag Luft III-bound Airman When Captured

This map illustrates the route taken by Ed Bender when captured by the NAZIs just outside La Goulafriere, France (off map to the west). From the interrogation center at Dulag Luft (Oberursel, just north of Frankfort-am-Main, Germany), it is typical of the route that a captured Allied officer serving in the air corps would take if sent to Stalag Luft III in what was then Sagan, Germany (now Zagan, Poland). Following the forced march in the bitter cold of Jan/Feb, 1945, Capt. Bender was loaded onto a boxcar and sent to Stalag XIII-D in Nuremberg, Germany. Others were transported to Stalag VII-A in Moosburg. Later that year Bender and many others marched to the grossly-overcrowded Stalag VII-A and were liberated on April 29, 1945 by Gen. George Patton's army.

The link to more pictures is here
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Schedule for Reenactment of 1945 Forced March of Stalag Luft III POWs

Follow along with the progress of the 16 "Kriegie Kids," who will reenact the forced march of their fathers. Some will walk and some will cheer them on from the bus that will follow the group. Participant's first names and the states they are traveling from include:

Miriam (Tennessee)
Diane (Missouri)
Marilyn (Ohio)
Jim (Washington)
Evelyn and husband, Kirk (Colorado)
Val and husband, Jerry (Wyoming)
Becky (Michigan)
Marolyn (Arizona)
Wayne (Arizona)
Mark (Arizona)
Kathleen (Arizona)
Marianne and husband Richard (Kansas)
George (Illinois)

The schedule for the march and visits to other relevant sites is:

Sun, Jan. 25 - meet in Berlin. Spend the night at the Pension Peters.

Mon, Jan. 26 - Bus arrives. Travel to Zagan, Poland to tour the Stalag Luft III prison camp site, museum, and Great Escape memorial. Spend night at Zagan, Poland at the Willa Park hotel.

Tues, Jan. 27 - Ilowa and Grosselten to view the places some of the POWs stayed during the march; 23:00 local time - BEGIN THE MARCH reenactment traveling about 15 km (9.5 miles). Spend night at Ilowa at the Hayduk Hotel.

Wed, Jan. 28 - Around noon local time, commence walk through Godznica to Przawoz 26 km (16.12 mls). Spend night at Bad Muskau.

Thurs, Jan. 29 - Walk to Bad Muskau 21 km (13 miles). Spend night at Bad Muskau.

Fri, Jan. 30 - Visit factory in Bad Muskau where some of the POWs stayed; walk to Spremberg 24 km (14.9 mls); tour barn museum and train station where POWs were loaded onto crowded box cars to travel to camps in Nuremberg and Moosburg. Spend night at the Hotel Stadt Spremberg.

Sat, Jan. 31 - Visit train station at Spremberg and go by bus to Dresden - tour related sites. Bus to Nuremberg and stay at the Elch hotel.

Sun, Feb. 1 - Tour war-related Nuremberg sites and investigate location of Stalag 13-D. Spend night at Nuremberg.

Mon, Feb. 2 - By bus to Moosburg to tour the museum and the area of Stalag VII-A; by bus to Munich; spend night in Munich.

Tues, Feb. 3 and beyond - some will travel back to the States and some will tour other WWII sites in Munich and the surrounding area (Dachau, etc.)

We hope you'll tune in for a commentary on our travels!
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