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World War II displaced thousands of people
from Eastern Europe. Not being able to return to their own countries many
settled in England. Displaced people came from concentration and work
camps in Germany, others, having first been deported by the Russians to
the depths of Siberia, made their way to England with General Anders' army
through the Middle East, Africa and India making their homes in disused
army and air force camps scattered throughout the UK. Stories of life in
DP camps are very similar |
| In 1948, with my parents,
I arrived at one such camp for Polish displaced persons. I was nearly
five. |
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NISSEN HUT |
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The camp was built in 1943 as an American field hospital and was
designated as camp 232, the 327th Station Hospital under the command of Colonel Benjamin
Moxness. In 1944 the International Red Cross took over the running of the camp and they
had absolute jurisdiction, as Protecting Power, over all POW's in England and as a result
many German POW`s were treated at the camp. After the war it was abandoned until 1947-8
when it was handed over by the War Department to the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of
Health for occupation by the Polish Resettlement Corps. |
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The sign at gate no1.
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Situated in the beautiful
Cotswold countryside about half way between the pictures villages of
Chipping Campden to the north and Blockley to the south, the camp
stood on about 70 acres in the grounds of the Northwick Park Estate in
Gloucestershire that belonged to the Spencer-Churchill family. There
was a grand Cotswold stone house with out buildings, stables, walled gardens,
green houses, an orchard, and two large lakes surrounded by rolling fields and
woods. |
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The camp, not visible from the
house, consisted of
55 corrugated asbestos nissen huts in clusters of 8 to 10
surrounding brick built
wash and toilet blocks with showers, baths and w.c. and although
there was hot and cold running water inside, the buildings were
not heated and very cold in the winter.. There
were also some cold water taps placed strategically outside from which
we drew our drinking water. These facilities were shared by 10 to 15
families in each cluster. The nissen huts were divided by a brick wall
so that they housed two families. There was a door and two windows at
each end of the hut. The floor was black bitumen or something of that
nature and for heat there was a round coke burning iron stove. There
were also 28 or so long brick barracks with a covered walkway linking
them. |
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These must have been the
hospital wards as they originally had 2 to 3 small rooms, toilets, a wash
room and long wards. The wards were later converted into individual
rooms. There were also 8 plaster board long huts, 3 of which were used for
living accommodation and the rest as storage units. |
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There were three entrances to the
camp. Number 1 was the main gate with a road leading to the centre of
the camp, where all the administration blocks were situated and a
large communal kitchen and dining hall. Gates 2 lead to the plaster
board huts and gate 3 had an access roads to the far end of the camp
past the chapel, the back end of the kitchens leading to
the main boiler house, which heated the water for all the brick
buildings.. |
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As the camp also served as a prisoner of
war the camp it was surrounded by a high barbed wired fence and wooden
watch towers. |
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