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Re: POW Camp Graffitti Called 'Pornographic'

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 16, 2003

"Prison camp museum 'could romanticise Nazis'
By Jamie Lyons, PA News

Plans to turn the last remaining hut at a former prisoner of war camp into a tourist attraction were condemned today for romanticising the Nazis.

The site of the prison camp at Island Farm in Ewenny, south Wales, is scheduled to be redeveloped. Campaigners want to turn Hut 9 into a museum and display 24 paintings by the PoWs.

But the leader of the local Labour-run Bridgend County Council, Jeff Jones, wants the hut to be pulled down and the "pornographic" paintings sold off.

He said: "There were thousands of brave Germans who opposed the Nazis.

"But the people in this camp were not in that league. They were officers who believed in the fuehrer. We should not be romanticising these people."

He said the captured German officers must have forgotten what pretty women looked like during their long incarceration.

He said: "Looking at the German women they painted, they are so ugly I would have stayed in the camp.

"I wouldn't have bothered to escape. If people think this is art, then God help us. If one of the prisoners went on to become Germany's greatest ever artist I could understand wanting to keep them. But they are poor."

Mr Jones said the women's bodies were well drawn but the faces were "dreadful" and could have been painted by anyone.

He added: "They are full frontal nudes with pubic hair.

"They did not have pornographic books so you can guess why they were painting them."

The wall paintings were saved 10 years ago with the help of a £100,000 grant from CADW, the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage.

The camp housed 2,000 German officers between 1943 and 1948. Hut 9 saw the largest breakout of prisoners when 67 escaped through a tunnel. Most were recaptured within a week.

Local Welsh Assembly member Alun Cairns accused Mr Jones of a "Basil Fawlty-style outburst". But Mr Jones was not impressed.

He retorted: "If I am Basil Fawlty then, given his size, Alun must be Manuel."

©Trinity Mirror Plc 2003 Wales"

AND

"Row over 'crude' POW pictures - BBC News

The pictures were drawn on the walls of huts at the camp

A row over whether pictures drawn on the walls of a World War II prisoner of war camp should be preserved is continuing to rage.

The images - which include landscapes, flowers as well as naked women - were created by prisoners held at the Island Farm site, near Ewenny in Bridgend.

And Bridgend Council Leader Jeff Jones is furious and says money is being wasted on keeping "crude" pictures.

Campaigners, on the other hand, argue they are of great historical value.

Hut Nine is the only remaining building at the site of the camp in south Wales, where around 2,000 Germans were held.

Saved from demolition in the early-90s, the site witnessed dramatic events including the escape of 67 prisoners in March 1945, who dug an underground tunnel.

Natalie Murphy, a member of the Civic Trust and the Bridgend Historical Society, admitted the pictures were not great works of art, but were interesting.

"They are of women, landscapes, animals - a lot of them tastefully done," she said.

Sixty seven German prisoners escaped from Hut Nine

"If these are lost, they will be gone forever.

"How about keeping them and preserving them - in Hut Nine hopefully - for the future?

Ms Murphy added that an estimated 300 people attended two heritage open days held at the site, and there was a lot of public backing for preserving the pictures.

But Mr Jones believes that the money spent on the images should be spent on other projects.

"There are some crude full-frontal nudes - they are obviously not sweethearts, they are probably prostitutes," he said.

"They are the sorts of things that men in prison draw."

It is not the first time Mr Jones has spoken of his desire to see the council-owned Grade II listed building de-listed and demolished.

Drawings of flowers and animals were completed, as well as some of nude women

"It is a complete eyesore and is in a hell of a mess," he said in February 2003.

"It is full of rats, and the idea of it becoming a large tourist attraction is not realistic.

In May, controversial plans to site a £10m state-of-the-art centre of excellence for the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) at Island Farm were approved.

The WRU's plans for the national rugby academy, which will include a housing scheme and business park, were approved by the Welsh assembly.

The future of Hut Nine is not affected by these plans."