Destination England -
Escape from Skole Camp
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9. Escape from Skole Camp
Ferdek and I were assigned to a hut which was occupied by another
twenty Poles and which was adjacent to the guardroom, of which I later
took advantage. After getting acclimatised to the place I started
planning my escape. My compatriots, a few of them students from
universities and polytechnics, were trying to discourage me saying that
so far as they knew of nobody who had managed to escape from this
camp.
There had been some 'volunteers' who, escaping in daylight, had been
shot. My idea, in my view, was foolproof providing the others
were willing to help me. They promised they would.
The camp was a square about 400x400 feet, and in each corner were
placed turrets with machine guns and searchlights. It had three
large huts which accommodated around 500 inhabitants each. Our
hut, was not only adjacent to the guardroom, but also to the
kitchen. In one of the corners were toilets and about 150 feet
from them was the water pump (which wasn't overcrowded because average
temperature was -20 C) where we washed ourselves, bare chested.
In addition, the whole camp was encircled with two rows of barbed wire,
about 25 feet apart. The outside wire was electrified with 3500
Volts, as I learned from an electrician who was mending the fuses that
I was practicing to blow.
Unfortunately for our hosts the main cable, which carried 240 volts,
was also the primary for the high voltage transformer which ran through
our hut and which presumably was planned as an extension to the
guardroom. As a result it wasn't difficult for me to blackout the
entire camp! I had been planning my escape for 24th December that
year. However, as this day was Christmas Eve, which we celebrate
as a family day, my friends didn't want their evening disrupted, which
any escape brings to the camp. They asked me to postpone my
adventure for few days, and so I agreed. I should like to mention
here that the electrician, who was a Pole, knew all about my tricks,
but gave the Russians a different reason for the electricity
failure. The double rows of barbed wire fence which ran around
the camp, provided an inside perimeter where armed patrols were walking
and guarding those who were trying to leave the Soviet 'paradise' and
those who had just come into that 'heaven', which was the
majority. Naturally, several times a week during our stay here,we
were taken for interrogation by the N.K.W.D., the Slovaks and Hungarian
communists as well. The N.K.W.D. was the equivalent of the
Gestapo in Germany, and means in Russian: Narodny Commissariat
Wnutrennych Delov, which translated into English means: National (or
State) Military Department for Internal Affairs. That was
official name for it. However the Russians, especially those who
were under lock and key, or jailed, (although officially jails didn't
exist in the Soviet Union, only education centres), had named it
differently. They called it the following: N - which they
translated as " nie znajusz ", K - meaning " kakda ", W - meaning
"wyrniot sia " and D - " domoj ". Translated into English this
means "Once they get you, you don't know when or whether you will
return home"!
Once Christmas was over, I didn't fancy spending the coming New Year
behind barbed wire so I decided that 31st December would be the date
for my escape. The morning of New Year's Eve, the camp commandant
walked into our hut carrying some documents, bringing two guards men
with him. A minute later, referring to these documents, he began
to call people's names, mine included. He instructed us to
collect our belongings and I took this as a sign that we were going to
be transported to Russia.
While I was packing up my wealth and simultaneously thinking about how
I could get out of this situation, the camp commandant noticed the
wristwatch that I was wearing. Russians at that time would pay
anything for a nice watch, because to them, apart from alarm clocks, a
watch was a novelty. The commandant was obviously interested in
it and so I removed it and handed it to him and his two companions to
look at. In order to do this, he had to put the documents down on
the nearest bench. Thinking quickly, Ferdek picked up my file and
put it into the burning stove nearby. After the Russians had
finished examining the watch, they started bidding for it, but being
unable to match my price, they returned it to me with broken hearts,
saying that it would be taken away from me later on anyway, without
payment. I added that so would the money! Feeling downhearted,
they picked up the files and left, but without me!
After that episode I started preparing my escape for that
evening. I had the weather on my side (windy and snowing), and of
course my friends, some of whom were seeing me as a ghost already!
My plan was as follows. Escaping along with me, would be a young
teacher from Tarnopol whose wife had been staying with friends in Skole
for the last few days and whose address we had memorized. After I
blacked out the whole camp, we were to make our way towards the toilets
while one of my compatriots would walk towards the pump. He was
to then throw his hat over the barbed wire (supposedly blown over it by
the wind) and while he asked the guard to throw it back, the guard's
attention would be diverted. During this diversion we were going
to break through the barbed wire near the toilets and hurry as quickly
as possible to next row of wire. As long as the lights were
off, we were safe from the high voltage. This fence also
contained
a little opening where guards used to get through. We were going
to take advantage of this!
If you remember, the last time my father saw Ferdek, he asked him to
look after me, meaning to try and stop me from doing
something dangerous. This was it! He knew that he couldn't
persuade me to change my mind, so he asked me to sign little
declaration which goes like this: "What I have done was from my own
free
will and entirely my own responsibility". He kept this message
hidden and carried it throughout his life in Siberia. He
eventually gave it to my father after returning home in 1946.
Today that little note is in my possession, given to me by my sister
when she visited me in 1960.
Unfortunately my friend Ferdek died from stomach cancer shortly after
returning home in the year 1946.
When 5pm arrived, the teacher and I said goodbyes to our friends, and
after we had managed to produce a complete blackout, we both made our
way towards the toilets to be ready for the man at the pump to do his
job. Unfortunately, at this moment, one Ukrainian, (one of the
inmates), noticed that we were trying to get through the wires and
started raising the alarm, calling to the guards that we were
escaping.
Meanwhile I was having difficulty getting through the barbed wire,
because my coat was caught in it, and all the time that 'b*****d' was
screaming his head off! It made my companion to withdraw.
Eventually I managed to free myself and ran towards the second
wire. So did a patrol man, shouting. When I reached second
fence, in the darkness, I misjudged the height of the opening and
caught the underside of my nose on the wire. This caused me to
stop for a moment, and that was very fortunate because at that very
moment, a light, which was actually a bullet, passed in front of my
eyes. Without a second thought I ducked down, jumped forward and
continued in this manner for the time being. Due of the depth of
snow, which was reaching my knees, the only way to move forward was by
jumps. It could hear bullets hitting the snow around me,
especially after the fuses were mended and the searchlights found
me. Then the machine gunfire started from both towers. I
was jumping, running, praying and crying all at the same time. I
felt like a stag must feel, surrounded and shot at from all directions,
without any possibility of escape. To this day I can hardly
believe that I got out of that mess alive and with only one scratch
under my nose made by the barbed wire. I am sure that it was this
small incident with the wire, which caused me to hesitate, that saved
my life. The short moment that I was delayed by allowed the
bullet to pass in front of me instead of through me. Towards the
end of my dash across the snow I felt like someone or something was
giving me extra energy and was pushing me forward. There were
moments that I was near breaking point and had thoughts of turning
myself around, but I reckoned that by doing this I would be shot anyway
so I might as well take my chances and try to avoid the bullets.
When I turned my head to look back, the lights from the camp were a
long distance away, hardly visible through the falling snow. The
shooting had stopped and it was very quiet apart the sound of a
mountain river in the direction which I was heading. To mislead
any dogs they might send after me, I stepped into the cold water and
walked though it for part of the way to the town. This river was
running right through the centre of the town, and, after washing
the wound on my face in the snow, I came out into the town's main
square. Here I stopped a young couple who were walking by and
asked them the way to particular street. I was lucky because they
were Poles and were going in that direction. When we arrived at
the street they asked for the number of the house and I told them I
didn't remember, but would recognize it if I saw it. I don't
think they believed me and I didn't myself, but in the end, after
wishing each other a "Happy New Year", we parted.
Eventually I found the house and when I knocked on the door a man
opened it. I told him who I was and who had sent me. Without
hesitation he invited me inside.
The wife of the teacher who had tried to escape with me was staying at
this house. She had travelled around 100 miles to see her
husband, and I imagined that by the next morning he would be loaded up
for transport to Russia. As there was no chance for her to see
him, she decided to return home by train early the next morning.
At midnight that night, we and our hosts had a few drinks for it was
the New Year, 1940.
After that we went to bed. I was sleeping on the floor by the
side of my hosts' bed.
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© Nick Bailey & Krys Bailey (nee Stendera) & Jozef Stendera
2013-2020