Worship in a POW camp

ON October 18 1939 my uncle, Allan Cameron of Inverness, received his call-up papers. It was his 21st birthday.

By his 22nd birthday, he was in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. He had been captured at St Valéry-en-Caux,when the 51st Highland Division fought alongside the French to allow the evacuation of the bulk of the British army at Dunkirk, sacrificing their own freedom for others.

Like many ex-servicemen my uncle did not talk about his experiences, but after his death his daughters found three small diaries in a suitcase in the garage.

The entries of his time in POW camp in Graudenz (now Gruidiądz), are very brief, but there is regular mention of church services. The POWs were expected to work, often ill-clad and in extreme cold, but Sunday seems to have been a rest day.

In his POW papers he is recorded as Presbyterian. The Geneva Convention said POWs should have religious freedom and the services of their faith, but there were many complaints about the inadequacy of religious support in prisoner-of-war camps. Alongside his entries about work, food and news from home are some which give an insight into their attempts to keep their faith alive.

A typical entry reads:

Sunday 28th July 1940

Cards! - service at 7.30pm in tent - (first party of farm workers ready to leave on Monday (29th).

Sunday 4th August 1940

No church service (no blankets)

The exclamation mark is a reminder that back home in Presbyterian Scotland, playing cards on a Sunday would be taboo.

Allan’s official card recording his capture as a prisoner of war

Allan CameronRoyal Army Medical Corps53rd Field Ambulance51st Highland Division

Group photograph from the Stalag (possibly allowed for German propaganda)

Pages from one of the diaries

Mural from the solitary confinement cell

Obviously a church service could not be organised every Sunday, but their activities were not limited to formal services. On the last Sunday of October 1940 he writes:

No work - no service - full bowls of soup today - issue of 60 Junak cigs - honey issue - 1/8 of a box - bible class in afternoon - most enjoyable.

Who led the bible class is not recorded, nor how many of those there had bibles. This may have been a regular event, or a substitute for the service which did not take place.

Although there is no mention of the men organising their own worship, there are some occasions when they had help from a surprising source:

Sunday 22nd September 1940

Lovely service held in dining hall with German medical orderly as Chaplain (‘telling service’)

Sunday 3rd November 1940

No work - service held at 9.30am and with German medical orderly acting as chaplain (very good) - concert at night in dining hall (very good) - sausage issue

No more is known of the German orderly who was willing to take on the task, allowed to do so by the German authorities and accepted by the POWs as qualified to officiate.

Armistice Day was Monday November 11 1940. It was an ordinary work day, but the men held a two minute silence at 11am and a service in the evening.

There is another poignant record of their remembering the dead from their regiment. POWs who ended up in an underground cell for disciplinary oflences found a way to commemorate the proud history of the Highland Brigade. The cell wall was decorated with a large cross, some soldiers at the foot of the cross on the left and a drawing of the Maginot line winding through the countryside on the right and, on either side of the cross, the words:

Somme, Maginot

April, May

May June in memory of the 51st division’s dead. They are not forgotten.

After discovering the diaries, my cousins worked hard to uncover their father’s story, retracing his footsteps before and after his capture, meeting some of those who shared his experiences and unearthing many details that their father had not recorded. I am grateful to them for sharing this remarkable story. They say it helped them to understand more about the reality of what it had been like for many of those who had been captured and marched into years of captivity.

“After discovering the diaries, my cousins worked hard to uncover their father’s story.

What is remarkable is that, despite capture, a highly uncertain future and a forced work regime without adequate food or clothing, so many retained their faith and their humanity.

A book, Yesterday’s Memories, by Fiona Cameron and Carole Grant, is based on these diaries and will be published shortly. Sandra McCallum extends her thanks for their support with this article.

This article appears in the November 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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