John H. Van Vliet,
Jr. stated that the officers were taken under guard, for walks in the
Tiergarten, and that it was only there, once they were able to distance
themselves from their “guardians” that they felt comfortable in discussing what
they had seen. It is difficult for a
non-internee to imagine how these POWs must have felt walking through a park in
the middle of Berlin, which although the capital of a country at war, still had
a semblance of normal life. Clearly,
there was no possibility of escape, which was the one extreme, yet on the other
hand, this was not a POW camp with fences and guards. This was a park in the
middle of Berlin, where one could promenade, despite the news from the Eastern
Front, yet there is no mention of these aspects, of seeing children and women,
not solely men. The Tiergarten walks gave them a respite from not only the POW
camps but an extreme contrast to what they had seen and smelled in the forest
of Kozie Gory.
It is Colonel
Stevenson’s February 1945 report, which verbalizes a number of questions that
logically, may have arisen and as we read his statement, certain questions are
answered, while new ones arise:
During the return
journey from Katyn, certain photographs were handed to me by the German Officer
in Charge, Captain Bentham (?) who instructed me to distribute them to the men
and officers. I accepted the photographs, realising they were safer in my care
than distributed surreptitiously by the Germans. On arrival in Berlin we were
placed again in the same Arbeit Lager. The lager contained French and Russian
prisoners. We, the officers were confined to our room, N.C.O.s and Other Ranks
occupying a room on a lower floor of the building. We were forbidden contact
with all other prisoners.
If Stevenson is
correct, then the Germans changed the room allocation upon their return, since
Stroobant noted that the Other Ranks and he were held at the top of the
building upon their initial arrival to Berlin. This section of Stevenson’s
report differs, to a certain extent, with what the others reported, since they
emphasize that the Other Ranks and Stroobant were immediately returned to the
Lagers they had come from. Of course,
Stevenson may have consolidated facts, and so what is consistent, is that the
group was, once again, individually questioned upon their return.
Here we were kept
for eight days. During this period a number of attempts were made to get us to
express an opinion of all we had seen, but I had issued definite instructions
in conjunction with Lt. Col. Van Vliet, both to officers and men, that they
were to refrain from all discussion relative to Katyn – the matter was full of
deep and dangerous political significance and had no bearing on our position,
future or present.
It would appear possible
that what occurred was that the entire group was individually questioned, and
that once it was clear that no individual was willing to speak out publicly,
the Germans decided that the propaganda value of the Other Ranks, even if they
did finally accede and speak out, would
be worthless. That perhaps, is why they,
together with Frank Stroobant, were shortly returned to their Lagers. The
questioners apparently included Lord Haw Haw.
Readers of World War II history, familiar with the name of Lord Haw Haw,
may not be aware that this pseudonym was used by a number of British citizens
who broadcast to the English-speaking world and presented the Nazi viewpoint,
including P.G. Wodehouse. Generally,
however, the individual most closely related to this identity, is a US-born son
of Irish and British parents, who left Ireland, lived in Britain and then went
to Germany -William Joyce, and it is presumably he who was one of the
questioners.
© Krystyna Piórkowska
