Came the Day

Grenville J Davies, a young man from the Welsh Valleys who came to live in Birmingham in 1935, relates his experiences when taken Prisoner of War at the beginning of WWII. Held in Stalag XXA and XXB POW Forced Labour Camps in Poland and Germany “Came The Day” is retold from a diary Gren was able to keep on scraps of paper obtained whilst in camp.

Knowing the Germans were withholding Red Cross parcels containing food and provisions, being thoroughly demoralised through near starvation, hard work and cruelty, interspersed with occasional acts of kindness, simply increased the mental instability of many men, some of whom were driven to suicide. The story tells how prisoners, with no hope of escaping, did their best to live off their wits and impede the German war effort to the best of their ability.

Eventually, riddled with lice, disease, and in a state of near collapse, as the allies began to advance closer to the German borders, late one evening they were removed from their camps and aimlessly marched for hundreds of miles in the most atrocious weather conditions imaginable, not knowing whether at any moment they would be abandoned or shot.