| MILAG |
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Over 5,000 Allied Merchant Seamen were captured by the German forces during
World War II.1 This book attempts
to record the experiences of the 4,500 or so of these Merchant Seamen, held
at the Merchant Navy Internment camp at Westertimke, near Bremen, Germany.
MILAG - The Marine Internierten
Lager, was first created as one of two compounds inside Sandbostel
Concentration Camp, south of Bremervorde, Germany, for the purpose of housing
captured Merchant Seamen. An adjoining compound, MARLAG - the Marine
Lager, being for captured Royal Navy personnel.
Between the Autumn of 1941 and the Spring of 1942 the occupants of these
compounds were transferred to Marlag und Milag Nord, two separate but adjacent
camps at Westertimke, 20 kilometres away. It is this virtually self-contained
Merchant Navy PoW camp that was referred to by the Merchant Seamen as MILAG,
their previous compound in the concentration camp being generally known just
as Sandbostel or Stalag XB.
As Eric Williams wrote in his book,
Goon in the Block;
“The
worst part of a prison camp is the part you can’t explain, the part you don’t
understand clearly yourself. It’s partly shame at being a prisoner, and being
locked up and out of the war. It’s not knowing what’s going on at home, and
not being able to do anything if things are going wrong....
When people say “Was it awful in the prison camp? Did they treat you
badly?” you reply “No, it wasn’t awful, the conditions weren’t too bad.” And
you know all the time that what was really bad you can’t explain to them.
They wouldn’t understand if you did, because you don’t really understand it
yourself. And it makes you angry.
It makes you angry that they can’t understand. That they ask you for
atrocities when there were no atrocities. You know that they are sympathetic,
that they’re trying to help, but it makes you angry that they can’t understand
what you don’t even understand yourself.”
Mrs Lawrence, widow of J.G.
Lawrence, First Mate of the British Petrol, wrote;
“In
all the years together he very rarely referred to the bad things that happened
to him during those years 1940 - 1945. Instead he talked of the ingenious
way they made things out of nothing, e.g. foil wrappings from Red Cross parcels
were collected and melted down, and, using the “lost wax” method with Red
Cross soap, made into badges. I think he had great strength of character to
come out of these miserable years a sane, good humoured and caring man. And
I must say that the few men I have met who shared those awful circumstances
with him seemed to have similar qualities.”
Were it not for these Kriegsgefangeners and thousands of other Allied
seamen of many nations who ferried goods and troops around the world, Britain
could not have won the war.
1 Sir William
Elderton, Mortality and sickness among Merchant Seamen during the 1939-45
War. 25.11.1946. Official figures show 4,633 British (U.K and Dominions)
merchant seamen were captured in the European theatre. These figures include
those interned in N. Africa. They do not include US and other non- British
seamen serving on foreign flagged ships.
For many Merchant Seamen this
ordeal by battle at sea had come twice in their lifetimes. Some had even been
captured before and knew at first hand, the problems of coming to terms with
the loss of their ships, deaths of fellow crew members and the ensuing long
wearisome captivity. They also knew that, having adapted to prison camp conditions,
they had to face a further upheaval in their lives. Once liberated they knew
they would have to try and re-establish relationships with mothers, wives
and friends and to do this alone, without the close community of fellow PoWs
who had shared and understood the same experiences.
As Eric Williams wrote in his
book, Goon in the Block;
“The
worst part of a prison camp is the part you can’t explain, the part you don’t
understand clearly yourself. It’s partly shame at being a prisoner, and being
locked up and out of the war. It’s not knowing what’s going on at home, and
not being able to do anything if things are going wrong....
When people say “Was it awful in the prison camp? Did they treat you
badly?” you reply “No, it wasn’t awful, the conditions weren’t too bad.” And
you know all the time that what was really bad you can’t explain to them.
They wouldn’t understand if you did, because you don’t really understand it
yourself. And it makes you angry.
It makes you angry that they can’t understand. That they ask you for
atrocities when there were no atrocities. You know that they are sympathetic,
that they’re trying to help, but it makes you angry that they can’t understand
what you don’t even understand yourself.”
Mrs Lawrence, widow of J.G.
Lawrence, First Mate of the British Petrol, wrote;
“In
all the years together he very rarely referred to the bad things that happened
to him during those years 1940 - 1945. Instead he talked of the ingenious
way they made things out of nothing, e.g. foil wrappings from Red Cross parcels
were collected and melted down, and, using the “lost wax” method with Red
Cross soap, made into badges. I think he had great strength of character to
come out of these miserable years a sane, good humoured and caring man. And
I must say that the few men I have met who shared those awful circumstances
with him seemed to have similar qualities.”