Schrire is at pains to point out throughout the book that RAMC doctors were not officially POWs according to the 1928 Geneva Convention, but 'protected personnel' who were eligible for repatriation. In his case, much to his chagrin, this never happens. Instead, he's assigned as a doctor to a succession of work camps in Poland and Germany for British Other Ranks.

He ably describes the mud, squalor and disease afflicting the 2,000 British POWs at Schubin (Stalag XX1B) in late 1940, where he shared medical duties with three very different Polish doctors. He also notes that at least 18 British POWs died during his time there. He also describes well the tension between the British POWs and the 1,200 French POWs who arrive in early 1941. Fully 1,150 of them he observes drily were stridently anti-British at this time--though French attitudes to the British improved as the war progressed.

The book is full of endearingly quirky details: the German censor bans him from receiving a copy of H G Well's An Outline of History and an entire consignment of books are withheld because of a cartoon drawing of a pen pointing at Hitler's posterior. He perfects his own recipe for homemade brandy and, while changing trains with his guards in Berlin, has a farcical time on the Underground escalators.

The comedy moments obviously struck a chord with the paperback publishers of the book, Digit, whose 1957 edition attempted to cash in on the popularity of the Dirk Bogarde Doctor in the House movies with this strap line over their lurid colour cover! 'Doctor in the Camp'! This external web site has a photograph of their cover:

Piles, Circumcision and Stalag Promotions

From Schubin, he progresses as the first ever POW doctor to the 1,000 British POWs at Fort Rauch, Posen (Stalag XX1D). Describing in gleeful detail the POWs' many clever sabotage attempts in the workplace, he does his bit by ensuring that the maximum number of POWs are always off sick regardless of whether they are actually ill. He organises a system of sick note with four categories: Hospital Chit, Bed Rest Chit, Light Duties Chit, and Convalescence Chit.

This works for a while until some of the more unscrupulous Other Ranks repeatedly abuse it and arouse the wrath of the German authorities. Some POWs are so keen to stay in hospital that they opt for minor surgery: warts and piles removal and even circumcision. Others. taking advantage of the fact that full corporals and above are not obliged to work, award themselves 'stalag promotions'. One Private in the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, captured drunk at Bologne, he notes drily, eventually promotes himself to Company Sergeant Major!

In Poland in early 1941 he notices the viciously strict class system of the occupation: Germans at the top, then the 'Volks Deutsch' Polish Germans and then the Poles proper, who are regarded by the others as mere slaves. While on a parole walk with a guard he notices a park sign: 'No Poles or dogs permitted'. Here also he has his first sight of some terribly emaciated Jewish slave labourers who take over a job of laying pipes in sandy ground that the British POWs successfully argue is too dangerous to work in. He reports this without hyperbole and the incident is all the more powerfully conjured for it.

He sees the huge build up of German forces for the invasion of Russia in early 1941--which include, he observes, an uncommon number of British-made lorries captured at Dunkirk. And then one day, bringing up the rear to a large convoy of troop-packed trucks heading eastwards, comes a delapidated lorry carrying a work party of British POWs. 'We're pursuing them!' shouts a jovial Brit aboard the latter.

From Posen, and then a spell at the 'Senf Fabrik' camp, he's assigned to looking after the 100 or so British POWs held at a nearby Germany Army training base at Kernwerk. The constant rattle of the firing range prompts this wistful comment: 'The machine-gun fired at twice the remembered speed of our own Bren.'

He's then briefly assigned to looking after thousands of Soviet POWs languishing in terrible conditions of typhus, TB and starvation at a camp at Wollstein. This prompts more bare, grim and soberly descriptive prose on the plight of the Russian POWs.

Then it's back to more humorous incidents, now at the British POWs at Schildberg (Stalag XX1A) where a passing local civilian young lady, 'fashioned like the latter-day Sabrina of television fame,' provides some bewitching daily eye candy for the imprisoned troops. Escapes by doctors were frowned upon he notes, but at Schildberg he remembers, 'Spring was known as the cross-country running season.' Few got far and the punishment was 10 days in the cells.

Schrire is then sent to Hoensalza, near Danzig and helps prepare seriously ill and badly wounded Commonwealth POWs for possible repatriation. Many were recommended by their doctors and were genuinely ill. But all POWs had the right to go before the repatriation commission. He describes some of the ruses got up by able-bodied men to get home and also has another set to with his old Colonel:

'If I have not shown the reason why the Colonel was an ass, then perhaps the following episode may be illuminating....'

NEXT PAGE, continued

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