|
|
 |
 |
Background history
Sports activity in prisoner-of-war camps held a great significance for improvement of psycho-physical condition of interned POWs. The simplest forms of gymnastic exercises, such as march-and-walk, but also the long jump, running or shot put, were activities which made an element of a regular military lifestyle and one which allowed POWs to build up resistance to the hardships of everyday life in the camp. Among the POWs interned in oflags there were many sportsmen, sports activists and referees who had been active in this sphere of social life before the war. Now, in the unfavorable conditions which they encountered in POW camps they began to create structures of camp organizations, frequently making reference to pre-war sports clubs. The most active oflags in this respect were the following: VII A Murnau and II C Woldenberg (Dobiegniew). Accordingly, sports competitions were organized there in the disciplines of football, handball, basketball, boxing, athletics, table tennis, and also in table games (bridge, chess, draughts). Oflag VI B Dőssel, where the presented poster announcing the match of Italy vs Poland comes from, accommodated about 3 thousand POWs, the first of whom were officers interned in Romania, following the defeat in the September Campaign in 1939. They were brought to the camp in September 1942, shortly after they had been taken over by the Wehrmacht. Like in the other camps, with the aim to improve the POWs’ physical condition, the sports section in Dőssel, organized everyday gymnastics and also sports contests, matches of volleyball, basketball and football, athletics events, as well as – which is particularly interesting – swimming competitions in the fire water tank located in the camp. The camp was liberated by Americans on 1 April 1945. Despite that, the Polish soldiers remained on the spot as each of them had to take the decision whether to stay or return to Poland. This was indeed hard at that moment because of the unstable political situation in the mother country. The state of provisioning improved in the camp which began functioning as Polish Military Camp Dössel. The status of the liberated POWs changed as they became “DPs” (displaced persons), that is persons staying outside their country after the end of the war. Life was beginning to get back to normal and a visible manifestation of this was just the football match between the Italians and the Polish, played on the camp pitch in Dőssel on 3 May 1945, as advertised in this colored poster. Although we do not know the result of the match, it can be supposed that it was one of the first international sports events after World War II. In 2002, the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War in Łambinowice-Opole published the book Wychowanie fizyczne i sport żołnierzy polskich w obozach jenieckich Wermachtu i NKWD (1939–1945) [Physical education and sport of Polish soldiers in POW camps of the Wehrmacht and the NKVD]. Its author, Wojciech Półchłopek, discusses in detail this extremely interesting aspect of life. The Museum also successfully organized a temporary exhibition “The sports life of Polish soldiers in the German captivity in the years 1939-1945”.
Prepared by: Wojciech Kwieciński
|
|
