POW diaries - Captain Percival Lowe, item 44

• June 19, 2017 17:32:19 Annick Rodriguez

                                            21.

  The beds were comfortable & had white sheets, we had had a blue

  & white check varriety at TORGAU.

  The drawbacks however were soon apparent. The Russians never

  wanted the windows open. We had agreed on no account to

  guard with them so we compounded & had there open at

  fixed hours for ventilation. The walking space outside

  was most limited being the length of 3 buildings by

  20 yards wide. The place was surrounded with walls with

  numerous sentry ports. Of course  I spent the first days in

  looking fir the weak points were an escape could be made.

  From the top floors of the living houses one could see the

  country round- even to one day seeing a man missing

  partridges. This was pleasant after being completely shut

  in at Torgau. There were numberous rules & regulations

  The English of which was [insert] somewhat [/insert] comical. We were only allowed a

  limited amount of money. There was a bath place with

  baths in it- there were told off- & one could get one

  bath a week.

  The German idea was presumably to mix the Russian & English

  with a view to quarrels- This we deti[insert] e [/insert]rmined should not

  occur- as in the first week or so nothing happened they

  issued a new order whereby  the beds were alloted English

  Russian, English Russian etc, so that we should be

  thoroughly  mixed up- we argued thus- At night the

  only person who came near us was the  ...  who

  turned out the lights- by day it then was a roll call

  we mixed up - Thus my bed was officially between two

  Russians but I did not sleep there.

  We cate our meals & had roll calls in our rooms. The

  weather at first was cold with snow but it soon got mild.

  
  

  
  

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