Uncle Frank Heekin's Stalag map locations 1944-45 WWII

Maps from Uncle Frank Heekin's scrapbook give an idea of the Stalag Luft camps.  Frank was further north than my Dad.  Frank was marched throughout 1944-45 winter in northern Germany.  The bottom map shows how Patton's Third Army penetrated the German border.

Stalag XIIA

Dan, Aubrey and I found these Red Cross preserved cans and boxes in the Guernsey, UK Museum.  The island was occupied by The Reich throughout WWII.  

Prisoners

In the yard, by the house of boxes,

I lay in the ditch with my bow;

And the train’s long mourning whistle

Wailed from the valley below

Till the sound of my rabbit gnawing

Was the grasses’ tickling shadow,?

And I lay dazed in my halo

Of sunlight, a napping echo.

I saw through rainbow lashes

The barrel and melting gaze

Of my far-raiding captors.

(The dappled mustangs graze

By the quills of the milky leggings.)

After some feverish days

They smile, and the numbing laces

Are cut from my wrists with praise.

When I woke, the rabbit was gnawing

His great, slow, ragged bits

From the wood of the wired-in hutches,

And dusk had greyed the white.                        

                                                Randall Jarrell

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