209218 Gdm. John Robert Large British Army Grenadier Guards from:Dartford, Kent My father, Jack Large, was captured at Anzio. He was one of 30 survivors of approx 300 Grenadiers who were killed in the landings. They were handed over to the Italian Army who illtreated them until the Germans put them in railway wagons to ship them to Germany. My father, with another Guardsman, broke up the wagon floor in the snow covered pass on route and escaped. They were recaptured and beaten then sent to a straff Kamp near Altengrabow. The name Gross Scheirstadt rings a bell. He lived in awfull conditions then as a slave labourer seeing others shot and murderd for the least thing. He was put working with 2 elderly German electricians who, risking death, brought him in a little food each day. He was beaten daily and at the war's end as a six foot two man, he weighed 6 stone. He then ended up in hospital with psycho neurosis. My mother often said he came back another person mentally they killed him.
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