Remembering

80 years and 1 day ago, my father W - still a teenager then - was imprisoned in a camp in Normandy; forced to work for the Organisation Todt, building roads and airfields for German forces. His camp consisted mostly of condemned criminals, plus a few unfortunate “half-jews” like him. Conditions weren’t as bad as in a concentration camp, but not much better either. There was little food and almost no time to rest. W wasn’t a strong guy and broke down more than once from the hard manual work. It was difficult for him not to give up hope for the war and the Third Reich to end.

Until, 80 years ago today, the allied forces landed in Normandy, and all hell broke loose. The airfield they were building got bombed, their camp destroyed; his unit was quickly pulled back eastwards, but still many men died - soldiers and prisoners alike.

W, the teenager, had to witness more horrors - like a whole French village’s population being shot by his captors, just because they thought the village had assisted resistance fighters. 

He could not bear it anymore, and one night he managed to crawl out of some barn where his unit was camped. He stole a bicycle and civilian clothes, and escaped. 

W cycled all the way through France to Strasbourg, and crossed the Rhine (telling the border patrol at the bridge that he had lost his papers and would immediately report to the nearest police station) into Germany. He was hoping that the war would be over in a few weeks, and only wanted to get home to whoever was left of his family.

He had no idea that he would have to survive another 11 months in hiding, but that is another story.