Displaced-Persons-Camp Wildflecken

Arrival of "Displaced-People" in Wildflecken

Ankunft von "Displaced-Persons" in Wildflecken

Arrival in Wildflecken Shortly after the camp was taken over by the Americans, the displaced people started to arrive. First they were brought in by army trucks, appearing at the main gate, easily absorbed into the refugee population. Then they came via the train station. They came in batches of 500 to 4,000. They arrived in cattle cars, men with haggard faces, grannies shawled and wearing babuskas, women and children peering out of the cattle car doors. Often before arriving at this, their final destination they would run out of food or diapers for the babies. New babies would be born; some passengers were even left behind at sanitations stops......

When the Repatriation Program started, many refugees decided to go back to their homelands. It was times like this that the station took on a spirit of hope and gaiety as those returning boarded the cattle cars and nailed up make-shift flags and decorated with flowers and branches gathered from nearby field. When chalk was available, sketches of their heros and slogans would appear on the cars as well as names of villages and hamlets in Poland. The trip would take five days and the UNRRA supplied food, blankets, candles and firewood. Friends and relatives would offer final bon voyage presents - bottles of home-brewed schnapps, or sausage. On the platform a DP band would play polkas, and as the train would pull out, the band would switch to the Polish National Anthem, and everyone would lift their voices in song. The crowds would wave till the last car had passed and the sound of the whistle blowing would fade away....... These scenes would be repeated over and over again. Well over 100,000 refugees coming in and going home, but eventually the doors of communism closed in around eastern Europe, and the refugees had to find homes in other countries...........

Kurz nach dem Lager Wildflecken von den Amerikanern übernommen worden war, kamen bereits die ersten "Displaced People" in das Lager. Zuerst kamen sie auf amerikanischen Militär-LKW, später nachdem die gesprengten Brücken der Bahnlinie wieder repariert waren, mit dem Zug. Meist waren es ca. 500 - 4.000 Personen, die in einem Transport zusammengefasst waren. Benutzt wurden in der Regel geschlossene Vieh- und Güterwagen. Die Menschen waren oft mehrere Tage unterwegs, meist gingen bereits während der Fahrt die Vorräte an Lebensmittel und Wasser zur Neige, Kinder wurden geboren.

Als die ersten Transporte zurück nach Polen begannen, wurden die Wagen festlich geschmückt. Die UNRRA stellte ausreichend Lebensmittel und Feuerholz für die 5 Tage dauernde Reise zur Verfügung. Selbstgebrannter Schnapps und die Lager-Musikkapelle machten den Abschied von den anderen Lagerbewohnern leichter. Die polnische Nationhymne wurde gespielt. Als die Kommunisten ihre Macht in Polen festigten, endeten die Transporte.

Bill Schanbacher, then member of the US-Army, was stationed at Post Wildflecken in 1954. Here's his impression of the Wildflecken train-station, shortly after the "Displaced" had gone:

I landed at RheinMain Airbase in Frankfort in Nov. 1954. A week or so later I was transferred from the Rhine Ammunition Dump At Miesau Germany to Wilfdflecken. Knowing it was close to the Russian border didn't boost my confidence any. My unit was responsible for the operation of Ammunition Supply Point #3. (ASP#3)Since we issued Ammo to all the training troops in the area ,it got busy at times down at the Bahnhof as the ammunition was shipped by rail. I remember the station was small, but it seems there were a large number of sidings with platforms alongside of them , probably for unloading Vermacht troops when the post was first established around 1938. The German Railway would leave the boxcars on the sidings and we would have to unload the ammo and put it on Army trucks to be brought up the mountain past the post another 5 miles or so to the ammo storage area. When ammunition arrived everybody was a laborer regardless of our duty assignment. Having learned about the post being used as a camp for DPs, I don't doubt that many off them arrived there and stood right on those very platforms we were working on. I remember little children all ragged looking, would beg us for any leftover wood. The ammo was stored in the railcars and held in place with wooden planks--to prevent it from shifting around. They used it for fire wood as cutting down a tree was forbidden without permission. I can imagine those poor displaced souls standing there on the platforms looking around at those mountains thinking they were standing at the end of the world. It was a desolate place ,especially in the winter. The temp. would go far below zero, and the wind at times was unreal. I could only guess at what those people had already gone through during the war, and to find themselves in Wildflecken ,even though they were free at last, had to be somewhat disheartening. But as the camp was discribed in the book, 'The Wild Place', they were 'Survivors'.


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