Neville Edwards's Gift from German POW

My father, Neville Edwards, was part of 38 Group RAF and towards the end of the war was stationed in Holland. With a few hours to kill before the next push forward, he and a couple of mates borrowed a dinghy from one of the aircraft and paddled up a canal (river?) next to a Displaced Persons camp. They stopped to chat to the inmates through the wire fence and one of them offered Neville a cigarette case in return for some cigarettes. The man told them that terrible things were going on at the camp and pleaded with them to report it to their superior officers as soon as they got back, which the... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Their Finest Hour Project Team
Dokumenttyp: Text
Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
Schlagwörter: British history / European history (excl. British / classical Greek and Roman) / International history / Their Finest Hour / World War Two / Aeroplane / Air Force / Aircraft / Airplane / Armed Forces / Britain / British / Dutch / Europe / European / Holland / Military / Netherlands / North West Europe / Photo / Photograph / Photographs / Photos / Plane / RAF / Royal Air Force / The Netherlands
Sprache: unknown
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28785171
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://doi.org/10.25446/oxford.25927675.v1

My father, Neville Edwards, was part of 38 Group RAF and towards the end of the war was stationed in Holland. With a few hours to kill before the next push forward, he and a couple of mates borrowed a dinghy from one of the aircraft and paddled up a canal (river?) next to a Displaced Persons camp. They stopped to chat to the inmates through the wire fence and one of them offered Neville a cigarette case in return for some cigarettes. The man told them that terrible things were going on at the camp and pleaded with them to report it to their superior officers as soon as they got back, which they did. Neville always maintained that, as far as he knew, nothing was done about it and as they passed the camp the next day they were told that one of the inmates had been hung. My father kept this cigarette case for his entire life (he died in 2017). The name engraved on the case is "Wachtm Magers 1945" (see photos for detail).