My uncle, Bryn Roberts (also known as Bob), spent a long time in Lamsdorf, though mostly on working parties, including a sugar beet factory, numerous mines and Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He was a Private in the East Surreys and was captured in Belgium in 1940.
I am now putting together his POW memoirs and would be most interested to hear of anyone who came across him. There were four Welsh Guardsmen from the 2nd Battalion: Smith, Price, (Len) Perrett and (Albert John) Allman, with whom he seems to have had a series of escapades. Also on one occasion he swapped identities with a Flight Lieutenant Ruthcliff from Portsmouth, to enable the RAF man to go outside the camp.
I would also like to hear of any Lamsdorf prisoners who spent time in Auschwitz. From my researches I have found that British POWs were sent to Auschwitz 3 at Monowitz and I believe their impartial testimony could be important.
Received: September 2005
From: Peter Lewis
On behalf of: Bryn (Bob) Roberts
There were 2,000 British POW’s in sub camps Auschwitz, mostly at Blechammer and Hedydebreck BAB 21 and BAB20 Iincluding BAB41. Most worked at the IG Farben factory or Seimens.
My Dad was n BAB20 and was at Hedeybreck from 1942 until the long march in January 1945. My Dad also worked in a beet factory I believe that was in Grudenz. He said they worked 10hr nights without food, they were exhausted in the morning. The guard was working them to death, Dad thought he was getting backhanders and was really nasty. Then one night they apparently just stopped going to the factory and that guard was never seen again.
My Dadwas captured on June6th 1940 at Abbeville.