http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/article1524537.ece

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/article1566570.ece

It recently appeared in the Gazeta Wyborcza in Polish, no pictures just text. The Polish text follows Martin’s summary in English:

“There is a report in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper dated 30 April of plans to significantly expand the current Colditz Castle museum to include a commemoration of the 140 Polish military who were imprisoned there during WWII. This is in addition to the plaque on the inner courtyard wall in memory of the Polish prisoners. The article mentions the names of Unrug, Bor-Komorowski and Chrusciela, along with the Mayor Manfred Heinz who is supporting the project and who has been in talks with Polish ambassador . The article refers to the British, French, Dutch and American prisoners and describes how the Castle is a tourist attraction for the British.  The aim is to expand the museum to coincide with the Polish commemorations next year of the 70^th Anniversary of the outbreak of war, and the authorities will be working jointly with the Zagan (Stalag Luft III) people.”

http://www.gazetawyborcza.pl/1,76842,5168859.html

Władze wschodnioniemieckiego Colditz chcą uhonorować polskich bohaterów

Bartosz T. Wieliński, Colditz 2008-04-30Colditz, 5 tys. miasteczko w Saksonii, słynie z potężnego renesansowego zamku, gdzie podczas wojny był obóz jeniecki dla oficerów.

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• Burma junta faces challenge to its isolation

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“Our members are there and need the UK public to show huge generosity to help them reach those thousands of people who have seen their lives and livelihoods uprooted by this disaster,” said Brendan Gormley, chief executive of the DEC.

A national DEC appeal has numerous benefits. It increases the amount raised by five or ten times, largely due to the free airtime offered by broadcasters for the appeal. It also means fundraising efforts are not duplicated and the public are not bombarded by different messages or confused about where to send their money. The DEC also guarantees that all the money raised will be spent on the cause it was raised for.

“A DEC campaign gets the nation giving. All the broadcasters get behind it and we get a lot of free airtime for the appeal.,” said Mark Asterita, head of fundraising at the British Red Cross.

“Clearly there has been a lot of media coverage of the story but news stories do not prompt people to give money. You have to get the chance to ask them and I’m sure they will respond generously in the way they have in the past.” The DEC’s Tsunami appeal raised almost £400 million. Charity chiefs hope the Burma appeal will raise at least as much as the appeal after the Bangladesh cyclone, which reached almost £10 million.

A spokeswoman for the DEC said it was right that people should question whether their money will be spent effectively in Burma, given the nature of the military junta.

However she noted the first consignment of emergency aid will arrive this morning in Rangoon by air fro Kuala Lumpur.

“One of the tests that must be met before the DEC launches an appeal is whether the money be spent effectively on the ground. We would not launch the appeal if we were not confident it would be, “ she said.

The three main charities had already launched individual fund raising appeals before the DEC took its decision to hold a national campaign. They will now cease, although all the money raised go towards their work in Burma.

To donate visit www.dec.org.uk or telephone 0870 60 60 900

Above. Ralph Cowen, Private, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, as drawn by Earl Haig.

Through our e-mails Lorraine and I have been able to piece together some information and pictures of Ralph which any Colditz enthusiast will be delighted to see. Some have rarely, if ever, been seen before.

In the ‘Men of Colditz’ section of this site there is a new ‘Individuals’ section of which Ralph’s is the first story. Please take the time to read Ralph’s story in his own words and enjoy his fantastic photos from Mooseburg & Colditz.

July 3rd - 5th 2008, £249 per person

Trip to Oflag IVC, Colditz. Thursday to Saturday.

There are just 4 twin/double room left available. It can be used as a single room (add £25 hotel single room supp)

The flights are currently FREE, plus taxes (totalling £29.99). 

I have scanned it on to 2 word docs as it is hard to put it on here. If anyone wants to buy a copy of the mag it can be purchased from WH Smiths. If anyone wants me to e-mail them the word docs I can do so, please e mail me.

A scanned version is featured below but it is not a great copy. 

The Arctile also features 2 photos from guests who have been on my trips, Melvyn Lawes (night shot) & Alan Worrell (day shot).

Today’s Times carries the following article on the future of Colditz Castle. At the bottom is says I am the source…. news to me!

Roger Boyes in Colditz and Tom Whipple

 They burrowed like moles, made a glider out of bedsheets, hid in laundry sacks, and abseiled down the steep walls of a fortress that was supposed to keep the most troublesome British captives under lock and key. The wartime prisoners of the wind-swept Colditz castle remain potent symbols of British and Allied ingenuity. Hundreds of escape attempts were plotted from the 700-room castle that squats on a crag south of Leipzig; just 18 found their way home. Now the escape academy is becoming a music academy as the castle undergoes a major revamp at the behest of the government of Saxony. The aim is to turn the complex into a functioning German castle again rather than just a fragment of the British popular imagination.

In the next three years, however, a more modest museum is to be built – with only one floor devoted to the prisoners of war – while the rest of the castle will be put to other uses. The plans are stirring a debate about how far the castle can be modernised without losing its sense of authenticity. Survivors, after all, are dying and their old network, the Colditz Association, which was a powerful lobby for their interests, has been wound up. A German official concerned with the upkeep of the many rundown castles around the country said: “I can see that while the castle is undeniably the property of Saxony and part of a German history that stretches back to the 11th century, it is also part of the emotional history of the British. We should be be treading delicately.”

The castle with its two courtyards looks superficially much as it did between 1940 and 1945. The East Germans, though, used the castle as a hospital and nursing home after the war, splitting many of the original rooms. In the outer courtyard, the old German barracks has been converted into a youth hostel. The punishment cells were knocked down after reunification to make way for a restaurant. And the building that once housed the camp workshop – where prisoners stole tools and spare keys – will soon be the Saxon Music Academy. David Ray, author ofColditz: A Pictorial History, said: “British and Commonwealth visitors come primarily for the PoW stories and locations and that will diminish when word gets round that Colditz is just another German Schloss [castle].” So far the changes are broadly acceptable to surviving inmates and their relatives. “My father was in Colditz for four years,” says Antony Anderson. His father, Major Will Anderson, was an expert improviser, creating a typewriter and other equipment needed to forge passes. “His line would have been: if people manage to convert it for use by the community then that is a wonderful thing.” Michael “Micky” Burn – a former prisoner who covered the liberation of his own camp for The Times – said he thought that the German authorities should be left to get on with the renovation. “I’m entirely in favour of recreating the prisoner camp,” said the 95-year-old veteran, “but first and foremost it is a great German monument.” There are, however, two fundamental problems. The first is that turning Colditz into a largely German memorial site may stir up the local neo-Nazi youths. After 100 far-right youths stampeded through the town in February, 20 local mayors mounted an antiNazi rally to show that Colditz rejected them. Even so, locals believe that the far Right could try to scare away some of the 20,000 tourists who arrive each year. There is also a plan to turn over one of the former prisoner barracks into a secondary school. That would entail the loss of the PoWs’ theatre as an historical site. Airey Neave, who later became a Conservative MP, started an escape from behind the stage. The Germans allowed the PoWs to engage in amateur dramatics, giving escapers a chance to run up disguises on a homemade sewing machine. One French officer almost escaped dressed as a woman. Renate Lippmann, one of the curators at Colditz, says: “It would be a real shame to lose the theatre.” But while Britain remains sentimental, Mr Burn has few illusions. “I hate the place myself,” he says. Past glories— Built around 1083 by Augustus the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland, the castle sits on a promontory jutting out hundreds of feet above the River Mulde. It was a mental asylum for much of the 19th century — Under the Nazis, Colditz housed Oflag IVC, “a special camp set up by the Germans for prisoners of war who had proved themselves to be a nuisance at other camps”, according to the Colditz inmate and historian P. R. Reid. The Nazis believed the camp was escape-proof because of its high outer wall and moat — Among those who escaped were Lieutenant Airey Neave, later an MP, who marched out dressed as a German officer Source: colditzcastle.net