CBC Digital Archives

VE-Day Countdown: Allied prisoners of war free at last

Day by day, the news got better as the Second World War wound down in Europe. Sixty years ago, CBC Radio brought home reports of retreating Germans, freed prisoners of war, captured spies and surrender in Italy. But with the end of hostilities came dark news of hellish concentration camps, starving civilians and a rocky future for U.S.-Soviet relations. CBC Archives counts down the days to victory in Europe.

April 20, 1945: SOMEWHERE IN GERMANY - For hundreds of liberated Allied prisoners of war, the trip out of hell begins at a Canadian airfield in Germany. For months and years, these men have endured poor food, cramped bunks and nonexistent medical attention in German prison camps. Now they're waiting to be flown to England, where hot showers and clean clothes beckon. Dirty and emaciated, they relate their ordeal to air force reporter Warren Wilkes in this CBC Radio clip.
• About 8,000 Canadians were prisoners of war in Europe. Almost 2,000 of those were captured after the ill-fated Canadian raid on Dieppe in August 1942.
• According to Jonathan Vance, author of a book about Canadian PoWs, German camps were "relatively good" at first, in 1941 and 1942. But as the end of war drew near the conditions in the camps got worse. Food became much more scarce and the prisoners were subjected to forced labour. • Prisoner of war camps held captured servicemen from every branch of the military and every Allied nation. Officers were usually segregated into separate camps.
• Canadians were kept in a "British compound" alongside Australians, Britons and New Zealanders. Czechs, free French, Poles and Yugoslavs were also in the British compound.
• Russians, who were generally treated worse by the Germans, were imprisoned in a separate compound, as were Americans once they entered the war.

• The Canadian Red Cross sent parcels for prisoners, one for each man per week (although the men often didn't receive them that frequently). The parcels contained tinned meat or fish, dry biscuits, dried fruit, tea, jam, powdered milk, chocolate and soap.
• Prisoners considered the Canadian Red Cross parcels superior to those from the British, American and New Zealand Red Cross. The Canadian parcel contained 2070 calories, more than any other.

• Prisoners were also permitted to send and receive letters, but mail was subject to censoring by both Canadian and German authorities.
• Families could also arrange and pay for private companies to send care packages to prisoners. Besides food, the most desirable items were cigarettes, which could be traded in the camp for virtually anything else.
• Other items permitted in care packages were books, playing cards, and games.

• Prisoners at the camps organized musical performances, theatre shows and sports to pass the time. One camp had a nine-hole sand golf course, and a group of Americans got permission to visit a British camp to play softball with the Canadians there.
• Some prisoners even managed to muster hockey games after writing to the NHL for hockey equipment. Players from two different camps would get together for games. "The Germans loved to watch," remembered one PoW years later.

• Many prisoners of war were moved from camp to camp as Russians advanced. Saul Stanley Tishler of Winnipeg recalled marching for 730 kilometres over 50 days. He said the prisoners were provided with 11 loaves of bread, two and a half pounds of meat, one pound of cheese and some fat for this "march of death."
• Other prisoners were herded into airless cattle cars and moved by train for the journey to a new camp.

Medium: Radio
Program: CBC War Recordings
Broadcast Date: April 20, 1945
Guest(s):
Reporter: Warren Wilkes
Duration: 3:41
Photo: National Archives of Canada / PA-169175

Last updated: April 18, 2012

Page consulted on March 20, 2013

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