LIFE IN A POW CAMP

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"I've always believed that the war robbed me of my youth but gave me my manhood."
- Colonel Hal Cook, World War II POW

The Battle of the Bulge removed thousands of Allied soldiers from a war of bullets and thrust them into a war of attrition. German POW camps were suddenly inundated with more prisoners than could be adequately accommodated. Contrary to previous procedure, they combined officers and enlisted men, as well as POWs from different military branches.

"The prisoners were of conflicting mental and physical states at this point," explains Gregory Hoblit. "The war was dragging on and America had just suffered a huge setback. There were some willing to continue the fight by harassing the guards. Others were exhausted and relieved to be free from combat. They just wanted to survive."

The overcrowding and subsequent forced retreats deeper into Germany resulted in prisoners not receiving much-needed Red Cross parcels. Necessary to supplement meager diets of bread and soup, they contained items such as canned meat, candy, coffee and scarce toiletries like soap and razor blades.

Hart's War set decorator Patrick Cassidy, whose father was an Air Force general, acquired sample Red Cross kits from the organization's museum in Switzerland, where he researched life in the camps. "The Red Cross parcels were vital to the POWs' physical and psychological well-being," says Cassidy. "Towards the end of the war they arrived irregularly or were intercepted by guards, which made the final months especially hard."

The Russians never received Red Cross parcels, states British Warrant Officer Andy Anderson, a POW from the Royal Air Force. "We shared our German rations with them, but their starvation was so great they retrieved the tins we disposed of and licked them clean. How can one fathom that kind of hunger?"

Upon his arrival in Stalag 4B, Anderson had to exchange his boots for a pair of wooden Dutch clogs. He received a Red Cross kit containing soap, a shaving stick, toothpaste, hairbrush and socks. Most weeks he received a parcel of 50 cigarettes, which were used as camp currency. Clothing was worn a full week before they were allowed to be laundered.

The guards themselves were also not immune from hardship. Since all German men of suitable age and health were called to arms, camp personnel were either too old, too young, or wounded and physically unable to fight - children as young as 13 and men in their 60s.

For captors and captives alike, the focus was to somehow endure, day after day, the deprivation and boredom. Standing head counts, appels, were conducted at least once a day to make sure no one was missing and to reinforce authority.

Anderson, who consulted with filmmakers during pre-production, says the appels were an irresistible chance to harass the guards.

"We deliberately made it difficult for them by moving around and getting out of line," he recalls. "Sometimes the count of 200 men would take an hour. Who cared, we had nowhere to go, nothing else to do."

He believes his camp was probably better than most. A daily loaf of bread was shared among five men, and there were adequate huts available for classroom instruction and stage productions. "One of the prisoners was escorted to Berlin with an armed guard, and allowed to negotiate a deal to exchange cigarettes for theater costumes," he says.
Disparity among the various camps was one of the things that most intrigued set decorator Patrick Cassidy. "Sometimes you might find Ping-Pong tables or phonographs," he says. "Some had mail service. There were some with virtually no amenities at all. Generally the Luft camps, for air force prisoners, were the most favorable."

Survival rates of American POWs in Europe - 1,121 deaths among 93,941 captives, according to Charles Stenger of American Ex-Prisoners of War - were much higher than in the Pacific Theater. Nevertheless, the duress was extreme. Toward the end, when Germany grew desperate and Hitler became paranoid, the Nazi SS took over camp operations from the military branches.

"Prisoners went in weighing 180 pounds and left at 110 or 100," says production designer Lilly Kilvert. "They would spend 12 hours a day in bed to conserve calories."

Despite a loss of strength and energy, Allied captives often showed remarkable resourcefulness.

"Among these prisoners were engineers, architects, scientists, and tradesmen," Kilvert says. "They were very clever in devising ways to build things with no tools or equipment. I read about their exploits with awe."

Colonel Hal Cook, an American prisoner at Stalag Luft III, consulted with Hart's War filmmakers on all aspects of camp life and gave valuable input on the script. He attests to the POWs ingenuity. "Some of the guys in my camp put a radio together from all sorts of strange parts," he says. "I never saw it in one piece because they disassembled it every time, but I know we garnered a lot of information about what was going on outside from that amazing thing."

The 76-year-old Cook's story is remarkable - yet not uncommon among POW survivors. A B-24 bomber navigator, Cook was shot down over Austria and forced to march in blizzard conditions to various camps in Germany, causing his socks to mold to his skin. He ended up at Stalag Luft III, 100 miles southeast of Berlin, near what was then the Polish border.

"The guards would not hesitate to shoot at us," recalls Cook. "Security was tight because a few months earlier 76 British airmen had tunneled out in what became known as 'The Great Escape.' Fifty were shot upon recapture."

Cook says tight discipline was maintained in the camp by the American commanding officer, a highly-respected Colonel unafraid of confrontation.

"In July 1944, very shortly after an attempt on Hitler's life, the German officer gave the extended arm Nazi salute instead of the customary military one. Our Colonel just stood there - he refused to return the salute."

Cook credits the commander with saving lives by insisting his men exercise in the compound every day in anticipation of being evacuated deeper into Germany as the Russian Army advanced. He was correct. On January 28, 1945, Cook and 12,000 other Allies were marched through snow and freezing cold, "the worst experience of my life," into the interior of Germany. Though many died during the ordeal, Cook credits the men's physical conditioning with preventing more deaths, including his own.

Despite losing 50 pounds during the ordeal, Cook managed, in the closing weeks of the war, to escape to Switzerland. He arrived in New York on May 29, 1945 - his 21st birthday.

"I've always believed that the war robbed me of my youth but gave me my manhood," Cook remarks. He is quick to dismiss accolades for being a hero. "I'm just a survivor. The heroes didn't come home," he says quietly.

After visiting the site where he was once held, where only a plaque now remains, Cook came to Prague to begin his work on Hart's War. His wife was with him when he viewed the film's POW set at Milovice.

"She gained a greater understanding of what I went through while walking around this camp than she did from all the stories I told her over the years," Cook says. " I was honored to be involved with this project, and have been awfully pleased with Hoblit's attention to detail. There's an overriding feeling of respect on his part about what fellows like me went through, and it's been a privilege to share my past with him and these young actors. It's been a wonderful, touching experience at this end stage of my life."