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| Entrance to Tunnel 'Harry' - canadianmedalofhonour.com |
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| Sagan Station - appellpublishing.com |
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| Breslau Station During German Occupation- bfcollection.net |
Bram ‘Bob’ Vanderstok
had made three unsuccessful attempts to get out of Stalag Luft 111 before he
took part in the Great Escape. The first was in June 1942 and the last, a year
later when he managed to reach the second gate of the camp dressed as a German
Unteroffizier escorting six RAF senior officers through. They had followed a fake
delousing party which had marched through and got clear of the camp. Unfortunately
the guard at the gate recognised Vanderstok and the Germans quickly realised the
first party was false . (The escapers were all recaptured, although Flt Lt.
Johnny Stower crossed over an unguarded part of the border into neutral Switzerland,
then inadvertently wandered back onto the German side and was arrested by a
patrolling sentry.)
Vanderstok was one of about forty escapers who were
designated to travel by train. This was based on the amount of German Reich
marks that the escape committee had managed to accumulate and the escaper’s
chances of success e.g. German and multilingual speakers, especially those
native to occupied countries e.g Norwegians, Poles, French, Dutch etc. The rest
would have ‘hardarse it’ on foot as the Kriegies termed it.
Vanderstok described what happened on 24 March 1944 in his
secret MI9 Escape Report:
‘…a mass escape took
place from the North Compound of Stalag Luft 3 by means of a tunnel, which had
taken one year to construct. I was number 18 in the tunnel, priorities having
been worked out by all the people taking part in the escape. Approximately 200
intending escapers were fitted out with clothing and papers, but I do not know
how many of them were able to get out. …A rope was placed from the exit of the
tunnel to a safe position in the woods about 15 yards from the exit, where a
controlling officer gave the ‘all clear’ by a tug on the rope.I got out of the tunnel without incident and made my way to Sagan station, where I had to wait for three hours as trains were delayed by a raid on
On the way to the station I was accosted by a German civilian who asked what I was doing in the woods…. I was posing as a Dutch worker and carrying appropriate identity papers. I told this civilian that I was a Dutch worker and was afraid of the police arresting me for being out of doors during an air raid. He said ‘it is alright if you are with me.’ He escorted me to the railway station.
At the station, one of
the German girl censors from the camp who was on duty there spoke to S/Ldr
Kirby-Green’ (the girl had been routinely posted at the station to look for
anyone suspicious). ‘This girl was suspicious of him and got a Hauptmann of the
German Military police to examine his papers. While this was being done the
girl spoke to me. She asked me a number of questions but I was able to satisfy
her. The Hauptmann was satisfied with S/Ldr Kirby-Green’s papers. During the
time I was waiting at the station at Sagan, I saw the officer who had been No
32 at the tunnel arrive.’
Vanderstok purchased a ticket for
The MI9 Escape Report describes what happened next:
‘The train for
I purchased a second
class ticket for Alkmaar (Holland Dresden
The tunnel exit (with escapers still trying to exit) was discovered
at 4.55am and by the time Vanderstock walked out of
The two Norwegians Sgt Per Bergsland and Lt Jens Müller came
out of the tunnel at numbers forty three and forty four. They made their way
through the trees to Sagan station without incident. Some escapers were unable
to find the narrow station entrance in the dark and arrived late, consequently
missing their trains.
Muller recounted his experience:
"It took me three minutes to get through the tunnel.
Above ground I crawled along holding the rope for several feet: it was tied to
a tree. Sergeant Bergsland joined me; we arranged our clothes and walked to the
Sagan railway station.
Bergsland was wearing a civilian suit he had made for
himself from a Royal Marine uniform, with an RAF overcoat slightly altered with
brown leather sewn over the buttons, a black RAF tie and no hat. He carried a
small suitcase which had been sent from
We caught the 2:04 train to Frankfurt .
Our papers stated that we were Norwegian electricians from the Arbeitslager
[labour camp] in Frankfurt working in the
vicinity of Sagan. For the journey from Frankfurt to Stettin we had other
papers ordering us to change our place of work from Frankfurt to Stettin , and to report to the Burgomeister of
Stettin."
The two Norwegians travelled third class, merging in with
the civilians. Both were good German speakers and would have no problems in
conversing. They arrived in
A massive hunt was on for all of the escapers. Many were
quickly captured, especially those on foot, but for the three that got away
they faced the possibility of more detailed examination of their forged papers
in full daylight, and the whole of Germany looking for the escapers. With the
public’s feelings towards Allied flyers because of saturation bombing running
high and SS General Mueller’s Kügel
Order* (Mueller was Gestapo chief in Berlin)
these were dangerous times.
*The Kügel Order
(which the POWs did not have full knowledge of) stated that recaptured escapee officers
other than British and Americans were to be taken in chains to Mauthausen
Concentration Camp. Mauthausen was
instructed that prisoners transferred to them under the Kügel Order were not to
be entered on the camp books, but taken to the underground cells and either
gassed or shot, whichever was convenient.
To Be Continued Next Week
Sources
The Great Escape -
Paul Brickhill
MI9 Escape Reports – National Archives at Kew
©Keith Morley
©Keith Morley
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Eva Nathan Clarke was born in the Mauthausen concentration camp on April 29, 1945, the day that her mother, Anka Nathan Bergman, arrived as a prisoner on a train from a labor camp in Freiberg, near Dresden, Germany. Her father, Bernd Nathan, had been shot in Auschwitz on January 18, 1945, the same day that 60,000 prisoners were marched out of the camp and taken to camps in Germany and Austria. Eva now lives in Cambridge, England and works for the Holocaust Educational Trust. She tells her story to students in order to remember and commemorate all those who died, but also to teach the lessons of the Holocaust. Eva and her mother, Anka Bergman, who is now in her 90s, are the only members of their family that survived the Holocaust; 15 family members were killed in Auschwitz, including 3 of Eva’s grandparents, her father, uncles, aunts, and her 7 year old cousin, Peter. In her talks to students, Eva says that there are two reasons why she and her mother survived – apart from her mother’s inherent toughness. “The first is that on the 28th April 1945 the Germans blew up the gas chamber at Mauthausen – this they were doing everywhere to try to conceal the evidence. My birthday was the 29th. The second reason is that three days after my birth the American Army liberated the camp.” (Actually, Mauthausen was liberated on May 5, 1945, which was 6 days after Eva was born.)Glad that our three escapees did not end up at this concentration camp and we eagerly await the next part of their journey in the well-documented and fascinating posts by Keith.
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Anne Frank