Read an interesting story about a German POW in Canada

He was taken captive in 1940 and sent to Canada. Canada is a very big place and he wound up at a POW near Lethbridge Alberta. He spent some months in the camp and was shown to be not one likely to run away so he was hired by a local farmer to work on the farm. Canada's farmhands were all overseas so the farmer and his family really needed the help. Imagine the surprise of the German when he got to the farm. The farmer promptly handed the German a rifle and some bullets and told to go shoot some gophers. A POW given a rifle and bullets???? So he went out and shot as many gophers as he could. Soon he was able to stay at the farmers house instead of going back to camp every night. At the end of the war he applied to become a Canadian.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

A lovely, thought-provoking story.

Perhaps the man realised he was being trusted, beyond knowing that shooting any person would get him nowhere; maybe even trusted more than in his past.

There were a sizeable number of POWs, both German and Italian, who stayed in Britain after the War and became straightforward parts of their communities. Some of the Germans likely had no homes to go back to - or did but in East Germany.

Italian POWs in one camp I think on the Shetland Isles, built their own chapel in a spare hut; using whatever materials they could find. I believe their chapel is still there, still consecrated.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@ArishMell We had a lot of German POWs stay after the war. Funny story but the lady next door and her family came to Canada after the war. She and her husband were Dutch and they survived by eating tulip bulbs. Across the back lane another fellow and his wife moved in. He had been a German POW. The Dutch lady never did like the German. Fortunately there was a Polish gent who lived beside them. He had escaped Poland and got to the UK. After the war he and his English bride moved to Canada. He was the senior survivor and out lived the other two by almost a decade.