Second World War POWs 'made to extract gold from Jews' corpses'
British prisoners of war were forced to dig up the corpses of Jews and take the gold from their bodies during the Second World War, according to a new first-hand account.
By Stephen Adams
Despite objecting to the practice, guards left them no choice but to comply, said James Wicketts, a former prisoner of war.
His recollection has come to light thanks to the online publication of more than 100,000 British Army prisoner of war records, on the genealogical website ancestry.co.uk.
Mr Wicketts was held in Stalag XXIB in Schubin, Poland, after being captured in 1940.
Tracked down by ancestry.co.uk, he told them that conditions there were "dire" while medical treatment was "unheard of".
"Prisoners were initially made to sleep in the open and many of us contracted lice as a result. Later, we were forced to sleep on wooden bunks in barracks infested with rats," he said.
"The only thing we had to eat were dirty boiled potatoes, which were given out each morning."
But the worst aspect was the dehumanising work they were sometimes ordered to do.
He said: "One of the jobs assigned to prisoners within the camps was the digging up of graves in a Jewish cemetery and taking the gold from the corpses.
"Many of us refused to participate, quoting the Geneva Convention in protest, but our pleas fell on deaf ears."
Mr Wicketts said that some of the German guards showed "great cruelty".
"On numerous occasions, the guards would line us up in the deep snow, where we would be kept standing for as long as they wished.
"When the guards grew bored, they would take their rifles and would charge into us, knocking down the unlucky ones."
The gruesome job echoes that given to the so-called Sonderkommando Ð or 'special commando' Ð in concentration camps like Auschwitz.
Groups of mainly young men were made to extract gold fillings from the bodies of fellow Jews murdered in the gas chambers.
Among the POW records to be put online include those of Desmond Llewelyn, who went on to play 'Q' in numerous James Bond films. He was held for five years at Oflag IX-A/Z in Germany after being captured in 1940.
The records were compiled by the Germans under the 1929 Geneva Convention, which required opposing forces to notify each other of captured combatants.
They have always been available to view at the National Archives, but only today have they been made available in a searchable format online, said Daniel Jones from ancestry.co.uk.
He said: "This collection of records will be a way for people to find out more about the heroes in their family.Ó
© The Telegraph UK