Robert Wolfe's father Ernie Wolfe, Order of Australia, had a colourful WW2 history, with 2 escapes from POW camps.

Robert recalls these escapes and his father's wartime history, in particular his relationship with a Yugoslavian mother and son, whom he returned to visit after the war was over.

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TRANSCRIPT

Robert Wolfe: One of the interesting aspects, I found, of Dad's army service, was he kept diaries throughout his time - both prior to and during and after the time he was a POW.

This is one that he kept in Greece.It was obviously bought in Greece. He's had another one here... in the early stages when he was in Egypt.

And he's had also this particular diary taken in the 1940... written in the 1940s, the whole year, when he was a POW.

And an interesting part to this one - I was glancing through it -it's obviously written in pencil and has faded quite a bit -but this is a Red Cross chocolate, indicating this was a gift from the Canadian Red Cross.

This was his bookmark at the time, and I've opened it on Christmas Day, 1942.

'They were awoken at four o'clock. Did the usual duties in the morning. Cleaned the rooms, went for breakfast, lunch at 11. Went to a service.' So it details... 'Invited Joe over.'This was Joe Wishart. So, this was obviously quite a special day for him.

Dad's first escape was with Hec Virgona, with Joe Wishart and Charlie Grandquist, and, I think, they thought because Hec could speak Italian, and it was close to the Italians capitulating, they thought if they got out of Austria and made it to Italy, they would be right.

Unfortunately, the first time they tried to escape, a Croatian lady found their provisions they'd stored nearby at a tip, and they were dobbed in, so to speak, to the camp commandant, and I think they did some time in a civilian jail.

But a few weeks later, they escaped again. Not very successfully. I think Joe lost his boots in a river and it was fairly cold, and eventually they were picked up by the Italians. So they didn't survive there very long, and they spent time in a place called Udine in a civilian jail, before they were taken back to the camp.

This is part of the escape story that was written in detail by Dad later - 'We climbed as far as we could into these majestic mountains, before day dawned. And as we sat up there, exhilarated with our freedom, we looked across and far down towards our camp visualising the guards standing up the boys for work, and asking, "Where's the Wolfe? Where's the Wishart?"

Towards nightfall, we had climbed a considerable height, bathed in a mountain stream, laughed with the birds and felt a great joy of freedom. Summertime in the mountains with all the beauty and tranquillity can also have an ugly mood, and this mood caught up with us in the form of a terrific thunderstorm. We sat huddled together all night, drenched to the skin, with only our shelter a small bush. Morning broke with delightful sunshine. So wet and hungry and wet smokes, off we set again.'

The years of 1941-42 were predominantly spent in Yugoslavia, which is now Slovenia.

Dad was in working parties, working in quarries on the railways - places like Maribor and also near Celje.

That was where he met the family, the Godecs.

Yuri is still alive,and the mother was... had conned the German guards to get some prisoners to help shovel snow from their house, and also to assist by chopping wood in the cellar. Her husband was in Dachau, a concentration camp, so she was fending for herself.

The danger for this was that it was partisan country, and there was quite a number of cases where the Germans had been killed by the partisans, so there were reprisals.

So, Mrs Godec had to be very careful that she wasn't found to be harbouring prisoners or assisting prisoners, which in actual fact she was, because in..... in the cellar of this house they had an illegal radio. So Dad and some of the prisoners would,while out chopping wood, and while Yuri, who was then a boy of 15, kept guard, and Mum bribed the guards, some of whom were Gestapo, with schnapps, they would listen to the illegal wireless.

But in the letter written in 1975 to Dad, Mrs Godec said how dangerous it was to them, and had they been found, they probably would've all finished up being shot. So it was quite a risky business.

So that's been a very emotional contact for Mum and Dad, who visited the Godecs twice. He was extremely pleased to meet Mrs Godec after all those years, and to meet Yuri.

In the early 1980s, he went back again.Mrs Godec had passed away. But he again was made to feel very welcome by Yuri, and they visited there again. Then my wife and I visited Yuri and his wife, and saw the old house, which is still there, next door to where Yuri lives.

It was interesting there that Yuri obviously saw Dad and the prisoners as a bit of a father figure, and he often related to me that the first chocolate he ever got was from Dad and those prisoners. So it was a very special connection to me.

After Dad left Yugoslavia, and as the war progressed, Italy capitulated. A lot those prisoners were moved further into Austria or Germany, and the two camps that Dad was in were Stalag 18B and Stalag 18A in Spittal and Wolfsburg. That's where he reconnected with some of his early mates - Charlie Grandquist, Hec Virgona, Joe Wishart.

I mean, they actually met up, directly and indirectly, across those three years that he was a POW, both in Yugoslavia and later on in Austria.

Copyright Red Cliffs- Irymple RSL Sub-Branch.