Mention Second World War prisoners of war and thoughts inevitably turn to Steve McQueen at Stalag Luft III in The Great Escape (one of the greatest WW2 films of all time), or perhaps to seachlight-dodging freedom-seekers held captive by the Germans at Colditz. What is often overlooked is that Britain too was home to hundreds of prison camps, containing thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen from the Axis forces.
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I confess to a lifelong obsession with prisoners of war (the shelves holding my collection of books on the subject could shore up many a long tunnel), and yet I knew very little about the British camps. My voyage of enlightenment took me to North Yorkshire.
Where is Eden Camp?
There, on the outskirts of Malton, stands Eden Camp, a military museum that also happens to be the nation’s best-preserved prisoner-of-war facility.
What was Eden Camp like?
I was taken on a tour by Nick Hill, who has been Eden Camp’s museum manager for over 25 years and has had the pleasure of meeting a dozen or so of its former inmates. He showed me rows of prefab concrete barracks, each of which would once have been shared by 60–80 prisoners. They are now exhibition rooms highlighting different aspects of 20th-century warfare, mostly concentrating on the Second World War.
As we walked, Nick talked me through the chequered history of the camp. It was built in 1942 by 250 Italian prisoners captured in North Africa. After Italy signed an armistice in 1943, Italian prisoners were moved into hostels and on to farms, making room for German prisoners captured after D-Day.
When these were eventually repatriated, the camp served as a hostel for Eastern European refugees,
then as an agricultural holiday camp, a Ministry of Agriculture depot, a pheasant-rearing plant and a vehicle repair centre. When entrepreneur Stan Johnson bought the site in 1985, he intended to turn it into a crisp factory. That’s when fate intervened.
“By chance, three former Italian prisoners came to look around their old camp,” Nick told me. “Stan was so inspired by their visit, he decided to turn it into a museum.”
The idea was ridiculed in the national press but Stan stuck to his guns, so to speak, and Eden Camp opened in 1987. It has proved a huge draw ever since.
What was life like for a PoW at Eden Camp?
Stepping into Hut 10, I entered the cramped world of the prisoner of war. Drab rows of bunk beds, sparse furnishings and an inadequate-looking stove confronted me, while the popular wartime song Lili Marlene played on a loop. The scene spoke of the tedium, frustration and lack of privacy inherent in barrack life.
Arriving on a chilly, overcast day, I could also easily imagine the effect of the Yorkshire climate on soldiers used to Italian sunshine. Although prisoners at British camps found distraction in playing football or cards, or putting on musical or theatrical performances, outbreaks of violence were not uncommon. There were even isolated cases of prisoners holding kangaroo courts before executing their fellow inmates.
However, in Hut 10, creativity and ingenuity were also in evidence. I marvelled at toys, a rocking horse, a wonderfully ornate guitar and an exquisite pair of miniature shoes made out of bread – all crafted by prisoners of war and since donated to the museum.
“They sometimes gave the things they had made to local people as tokens of friendship,” Nick commented, “because they had expected much more hostility and ill-treatment from them.”
Prisoners often got to know their civilian neighbours quite well because they could earn themselves money to spend in the camp shop by joining outside work parties, often at nearby farms. At Eden Camp, it seems they played up to national stereotypes: “Italians had a reputation as poor workers but Germans were known as grafters,” Nick declared.
Such breaks from life inside were generally welcomed by the prisoners. Although a handful of the camps, such as Grizedale Hall were based in country houses, the vast majority were cheap and cheerless affairs, typically comprising a few rows of corrugated-iron Nissen huts, makeshift wooden sheds or – like Eden Camp – prefab concrete barracks, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
What happened to Britain's Pow Camps?
Few survive today. After the war, most were dismantled, or sold off to businesses or farms (where livestock became the new inmates). Others became holiday parks, the huts simply replaced by caravans. Holidaymakers at the Speyside Camping and Caravanning Club Site in Moray or Cornwall’s swish Piran Meadows Resort and Spa may be blissfully unaware that they are on the site of Camp 67 Sandy Hillock and Camp 115 White Cross respectively.
How can you find out where other PoW camps were in Britain?
Anyone keen to track down their local prison camp would do well to start at Hut 10. A map there locates scores of camps from Cornwall to Orkney, most of them in the countryside, close to where prisoners could undertake farm work. Bizarrely, although we know that the number of Axis prisoners held on British soil peaked in 1946 at 402,200, the fact that a lot of official records are ambiguous or missing means there is no such certainty over the number of camps. The best estimate comes from an exhaustive English Heritage report that managed to identify a whopping 487 throughout the UK.
There were three types of establishment: ‘white camps’ were low-security affairs for prisoners who were glad to get out of the war; high-security ‘black camps’ held the top brass and fanatical Nazis; while ‘grey camps’ took everyone else. Black camps were generally located in the north, far from the escape-friendly routes provided by the slender English Channel.
Did any PoWs try and escape?
Ah yes, escapes. Hut 10’s boards are full of stories of break-outs from British camps. One celebrated practitioner of the art named Franz von Werra, held captive in Canada, eventually got back to Germany after eluding guards and leaping from a moving train.
However, no prisoners of war are known to have made a ‘home run’ from British soil during the Second World War (though the renowned pilot Gunther Plüschow managed the feat during the First World War).
What happened to the prisoners when the war ended?
Even after the war’s end, there was no instant repatriation. Instead, prisoners helped to rebuild Britain by working on construction sites (including Wembley Way for the 1948 Olympics) and made up almost one in five of the nation’s farmworkers. Many rankled at this extended confinement and forced labour. However, some at Eden Camp could at least send food parcels to Germany, where their loved ones were having an even-leaner time of it.
At last, by 1948, the majority of prisoners had returned to their homelands. However, around 25,000 made a new life in Britain.
One famous example was German paratrooper-turned-goalkeeper Bert Trautmann (above), who claimed his spot in footballing history while helping Manchester City win the 1956 FA Cup final –courageously playing on after breaking his neck.
Bert's story has now been turned into a film and you can watch The Keeper on Amazon Prime
It’s such stories of individuals that moved me the most. At the end of the tour, Nick recalled the time a German former inmate came back to visit the camp and spotted some silver birches that had been planted by the prisoners. Overcome with emotion, the elderly man had flung his arms around one particular trunk. “My tree!” he cried. “My tree!
Where were some of the other PoW camps?
In 2019, University of Sheffield archaeologists uncovered the remains of the UK’s largest Second World War camp, which held 11,000 prisoners of war by 1944. A public footpath through Redmires Camp Plantation passes extensive barrack foundations, among other buildings.
The Italian Chapel, Orkney Constructed from two Nissen huts and scavenged materials, this tiny place of worship on Lamb Holm was created by Italian prisoners of war building protective barriers around Scapa Flow. It remains a thing of rare beauty. orkney.com/listings/the-italian-chapel
Setley Plain, Hampshire
Amid the gorse of the New Forest near Lymington are the ghostly relics of Camp 65, razed to the ground. Spot traces of the camp and concrete pathways. nfknowledge.org/contributions/setley-prisoner-of-war-camp-overview
Cultybraggan, Perthshire
The ‘Black Camp of the North’ near Comrie had tight security as it held up to 4,000 of the most fanatical Nazis. Two huts are now a visitor centre and an artisan sourdough bakery.
Grizedale Hall, Cumbria
This was demolished in 1957, but evidence of what was once Camp 1 still exists in Grizedale Forest. Admire impressive garden terrace walls and the visitor centre.
For more information about camps around the UK, visit ww2pow.uk
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Top image: Eden Camp by Humphrey Bolton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
