10 - Sunday, November 12, 1989 - North Shore News

© on the other hand «

We had to see the castle. It was,
after all, my castle.

It isn’t everyone who has lived in
a castle. But I did when, having
escaped from Germany, | was con-
fined in Siklos Var, an ancient pile
in Southern, Hungary whose bat-
tlements rear high over the town of
Siklos.

TAKING A WALK back into time can give a person
goose-pimples. Veterans will know what I mean. The brain
photographs scenes that can never be wiped from memory.
Some of the pictures are glad. Many are sad.

This year being the 50th anni- “Here, 311 Poles were shoi."' Here
versary of the outbreak of the Se-
cond World War, some of us went
back to visit the old places. So we

photo ‘Doug Collins

THE HUNGARIAN castle that Doug Collins escaped from as a POW in
World War II has been converted into a hotel and tourist attraction,

On Hitler’s orders, most of
Warsaw was reduced to rubple.

were in Warsaw on Sept. 1.
Around noon, the air-raid sirens
wailed like lost souls to mark the
precise moment the first bombs
had fallen on the Polish capital.
Fifty years! Can we be that old?

We parade at the memorial
honoring the Polish Home Army
ted by General Bor-Komorowski
that fought the Germans in War-
saw in 1944. Twenty thousand men
rose from sewer and tunnel and
ruins to fight hand-to-hand in one
of the most heroic and hopeless
actions of the war.

They had been counting on Rus-
sian help, but on Stalin’s orders
the Russians sat on the other side
of the Vistula, a short distance
away, while the general’s men were
ground to bits. The man in the
Kremlin had no intention of letting
an independent Poland rise from
the ashes.

A British bugler sounded the
haunting Last Post and the Reveil-
le that can never be Reveille for so
many; we thought of them and
ourselves and of youth and age
and of how half a century is not
enough to wash away the dirt of
history.

Warsaw is dotted with plaques
that tell tragic tales. ‘‘Here, 102
Poles were shot on Jan. 2, 1944."’

Building by building.

Lite of the camp is
left. Just a few rotting
guard towers evoking
memories of five men to
a loaf per day and a
bowl of fish-head
soup.”’

CRP

We went to the site of Stalag
VHIB in Silesia where many of us
had been prisoners. Once in Ger-
many, it is now in Poland. A
miserable place then, the site is
mournful even now. ‘‘Lamsdorf,””
it was called, after the nearby
village.

Little of the camp is left. Just a
few rotting guard towers evoking
memories of five men to a loaf per
day and a bowl of fish-head soup.
Pius a memorial that stands on the
mass grave of 42,000 Russians.

Gloom was in the air, and it was
with few regrets that Grey Eyes
and § flew back to England and
thence to Hungary. We had
another pilgrimage to make.

=

**There it is!,”’ I yelled when it
came into sight, miles away.

ft was almost like coming home
after a long absence.

The Var is now famous in
Hungary. Not because of the pris-
Oners it once contained — nobody
seems to know about that — but
because it is a tourist attraction. It
has also been converted into a
hotel.

Rip Van Winkle could not have
been more astonished than I.
Below the massive main gate there
is even a parking lot. A parking
lot! The attendant wanted money
and I felt like telling him ‘‘Hey,
don’t you know who [ am? Don't
you know I was here when...?’*

It was a Saturday. In the court-
yard where we had marched round
and round to relieve our boredom
on hot days and cold, on wet days
and dry, a wedding was in pro-
gress.

Around us on four sides reached
the living quarters. We went in to
claim our room and the recep-
tionist wasn’t much interested in
my fascinating story. She probably
thought I was making it up.

The Var is full of ghosts, just
like Warsaw and Lamsdorf.

There’s the ghost of ‘‘Hoppy,”’
otherwise known as Captain

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Maerz, the 60-year-old Hungarian
commander who shouted a lot and
had a front tooth that waggled
when he was angry, which was
often. Poor old devil, having to
put up with us.

There’s the ghost of the Polish
priest who got so drunk ona
Christmas Eve that we had to hold
him up to do his bit in the
beautiful little chapel that the
tourists now admire.

There are the ghosts of guards in
the green uniforms that had not
changed since the days of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, older
men who were glad not to be on
the Russian front. And decent,
most of them.

Voice-ghosts, too. On the tiny
radio we had heard the dark voice
of Lale Anderson singing Lili
Marlene for the German troops in
Africa; and faintly, from distant
London, floated the sweet tones of
Vera Lynn singing ‘‘We’ll meet.
agaia...’°; throats tight with emo-
tion, we heard the King speak; and
the V for Victory beat sounded for
a Europe in chains.

Yes, our own ghosts were there,
too. The ghosts of seven young
guys crawling along the castle par-
apet and down the wall on a rope

made of string and sheets, while
the guards took shelter in their
boxes on a wild night filled with
rain, thunder and lightning — an
expedition that was to be suc-
cessful for only two of us.

Now, 46 years later, 1 showed
Grey Eyes the spot from which the
descent was made. It was a long
way down. She gasped. So did I.
You would never catch me doing
that sort of thing again, let me tell
you.

We had a Happy Hour that
evening in cur room, just above
what had once been Hoppy’s of-
fice. We drank to all of the ghosts,
including his.

Dinner was in the castle cellar, a
Gothic vault that had once been
the guards’ quarters. The place
was packed with merrymakers and
filled with noise and the band
played Roll Out The Barrel. In the
Var!

The next morning I told a
busload of Hungarians about the
prisoners who had got away. They
burst into applause.

Maybe they’ll put up a brass
plate? I'm just joking.

It is all lost in the mists. Only
the goose-pimples remain ©