Skipton German POW camp project: Exciting developments! : Legacies of War

Anne Buckley, who teaches German in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, updates us on the Skipton POW diary project, which is a collaboration between the university, the Craven and the First World War project, and other partners.

There have been some exciting developments on the Skipton POW diary (Kriegsgefangen in Skipton) project over the last few months. We have just appointed three new student interns to help translate the next section of the diary: Emily Bagshaw (BA French and German), Hannah Williams (BA French and German) and Charlotte Smith (MA Applied Translation Studies). We are really excited at the prospect of working with such an excellent and enthusiastic team. Hannah said ‘This is an amazing opportunity to engage with such a unique historical document that lets us see British history form the German perspective.’ We are also delighted to be joined by Dr Hilary Potter who is a recent addition to the German team at the University of Leeds. Dr Potter commented ‘It is not just a translation project, it is also an act of commemoration which neatly dovetails with the original as both are multi-authored.’

During the first week in August an archaeological dig took place on a section of the site of the camp. Led by John Mitton, Assistant Head of Upper Wharfedale School, the dig was a huge success, with young archaeologists from four local secondary schools working alongside professionals. There were a number of exciting finds including a trench whistle and a Prussian ammunition pouch belt clasp. We used information from the diary to choose the site and identify it as the location of the hospital, isolation hospital, washrooms and latrines. We were lucky to get a visit from Stray FM reporter Lisa Darvill (a University of Leeds English graduate) during the dig and she produced <a href="http://www.strayfm.com/news/local-news/2059979/video-skipton-kids-dig-into-past/“>this great feature.

There’s a video of the dig available here and there is also a archaeology project website. We will be returning to the site during half term next week with the aim of locating the escape tunnel under the hospital.

In July we held an information evening at Skipton Town Hall and we were delighted at the level of local interest in the project with 140 people attending. We were excited to meet the nephew of one of the interpreters at the camp. The camp interpreters were an essential link between the British guards and the imprisoned German soldiers, but were not universally liked by the prisoners:

“….Shyly and awkwardly, his nervous child-like eyes inspect the rows of the dangerous ‘Huns’ – the former ‘baby-killers’. Should his gaze encounter a firm manly stare, his face adopts a startled expression, which almost seems to declare his innocence with regard to our imprisonment and remorsefully offer an apology for his presence.”

To read more translated passages from the German POW diary visit the blog section of our website

One of the German POWs has been in the news this week: Günther Krech was the Captain of the U-boat, UB-85 which has just been located off the coast of Scotland Krech unfortunately was one of the 47 Skipton POWs who died in the influenza epidemic in early 1919.

So what’s next? As well as working on translating the next section of the diary and having another archaeological dig, we are also working with an engineer to build a 3D virtual interactive model of the camp – more news to follow!