POW diaries - Captain Percival Lowe, item 57
Transcription
Transcription history
-
30.
It was next sprung upon us that owing to a shortage of tobacco
in Germany the sale of
tobaccothis commodity in the canteen would cease.A wild rush to the Canteen proved that this order was in
effect. In the afternoon however all the tobacco & cigars in
the place were sold under the eyes of the German N.C.O.
who for the time pretended to be blind.
A week later it was given out that from that moment no
smoking was allowed- it was now stated that the Germans
in France were not allowed to smoke. This nearly led to
a mutiny- the French calling out "liar". X
I now come to how the Germans enforced this order. If one was
brought up for smoking it meant a certain number of days in
cells. The little N.C.O. Pefifer was always on the look out to catch
people. The junior N.C.O.s did not go out of their way to look
for it. As to the sentries - one who had served with us in
South Africa stopped me one day and said they had agreed
amongst themselves that they would never see us smoking in
our rooms. All the same it was no joke. German N.C.O.s
were walking into the room at any odd minute. When I
was moved to SCHORNHORST I found that the order was absolutely
ignored in the rooms. But here the N.C.O & sentries could not
look in.
Here[insert] when at Schornhorst [/insert]we were ordered to give up all out tobacco-Mine was merely hidden- One day the Captain came round
in the evening. I was smoking a cigar. He must have seen
me. but he said nothing. This was not at the Citadel
which was much
morestricter.BetweenWe were not told that we must give up all watchesrings and anything of silver. And they asked us to sign a
certificate to the effect that all had been given up. Of
course we did not know what the Germans were up to.
-
30.
It was next sprung upon us that owing to a shortage of tobacco
in Germany the sale of
tobaccothis commodity in the canteen would cease.A wild rush to the Canteen proved that this order was in
effect. In the afternoon however all the tobacco & cigars in
the place were sold under the eyes of the German N.C.O.
who for the time pretended to be blind.
A week later it was given out that from that moment no
smoking was allowed- it was now stated that the Germans
in France were not allowed to smoke. This nearly led to
a mutiny- the French calling out "liar". X
I now come to how the Germans enforced this order. If one was
brought up for smoking it meant a certain number of days in
cells. The little N.C.O. Pefifer was always on the look out to catch
people. The junior N.
-
30.
It was next sprung upon us that owing to a shortage of tobacco
in Germany the sale of
tobaccothis commodity in the canteen would cease.A wild rush to the Canteen proved that this order was in
effect. In the afternoon however all the tobacco & cigars in
the place were sold under the eyes of the German N.C.O.
who for the time pretended to be blind.
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- ID
- 3963 / 243366
- Contributor
- Toby Backhouse
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