222973 Pte. Tom Ellis Jones British Army Cameron Highlanders (Queens Own) from:Liverpool My father, Tom Jones, a policeman in 'C' division in Liverpool before and after the war, he was a prisoner of war in Austria. He was imprisoned in a small camp which I believe was under the village school or the town hall, in the centre of a village called Wundschuh, Stiermark.
Each day, the men in this camp went out to the surrounding farms to work as labourers. Within the bounds of what was acceptable at the time, dad and the farmer's family became good friends, and they kept in touch for the rest of their lives. Mum, my sister and I have all visited the family and I received a letter of condolence from the farmer's grandson when dad died in 2007.
Dad had many yarns about his time working on a very basic farm in Ponigl during WW2, a very different life from that of a policeman working on the Liverpool docks! A few years before he died, he was contacted by an Austrian PhD. student called Edith Pettschnig, who was researching the era of 'farming prisoners' called 'Vom Front aus Feld' of which I have a copy. If anyone would like me to check for their relatives in the many reminiscences quoted there, I would be happy to check and photocopy the relevant passages - all the quotes are in English.
One story I would love to hear the end of. According to dad there were two Jewish Austrian nationals in their ranks, men who had made their way to England at some point and had been able to join up, being subsequently captured and returned to their home countries. Dad was very clear about this - he said everyone went to great lengths to conceal the true origins of the men concerned. One was called Peter Black, And the other was Arnold Glebe, or something like that. I would love to know whether they made it to the end of the war - dad was marched out of that part of Austria early in 1945 and didn't know.
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