Prison Camp

[Wurzburg]

Prison camp ? !
An area somewhere in an out of the way place, surrounded by fences, barbed wire, electrical fences, guard towers with machine guns, where undesirables are kept.
I think this would sum it up, but . . . . there were such a variety of set-ups that it is hard to describe.
The first one was just a "holding pen" marked off with some barbed wire and signs "out of bounds", at the Rhine river. There were no provisions, just what we had ourselves, or could scrounge up from the area that had been confiscated to erect this "camp".
Next came "the Harskamp", an old artillery training camp, especially set apart for us scum of the earth of the Waffen SS. It had Towers, machine guns etc.
When the Canadians governed it and treated us like P.O.W.'s, contrary to Eissenhower's order that we were "only" "defeated enemy forces" and therefor not subject to the Geneva Convention, it was bearable, in spite of the fact that there was not enough space in the horses stables, and many of us slept outside in holes in the ground, covered with our poncho.
When the Canadians left, and the Dutch army in the making took over, things turned from bad to worse. Half drunken idiots would shoot from the towers and yell "three for a dime" (in dutch) and a number of soldiers who had survived the war did not survive the peace.
Rations were cut and cut, anything of value confiscated, etc. etc.
When word of all this started to leak out, there was some protest (not all that much though) from the population. Slowly things got better.
next many of us got transfered to an Old fortress at the coast, not a pleasure camp, but at least disciplined troops, and work details that could earn you extra food.
From there on to another honest to badness old German camp, where they had set aside a part to house all of us who were under 21.
After that a "half way" camp; decent ÿouth leaders, no wires, some weekend passes etc.
There we were farmed out for menial labor, mostly stuff that no one else would do.
Mine was sorting dirty clothes in a commercial laundry from a nearby american army post (some of those were quite piggy); when my boss found out that I had been a medic as well as had office experience, I got promoted to "presser", manning the double steampress, and first aid guy.
After that, "release" and back to society that would not forgive, nor accept us.
Oh well.
Sortakinda in a nutshell.

[Tom Houlihan]

Where did you find this? It looks a lot like a segment from a memoir I've been helping with! If there's someone else who was there, my friend needs to know!