>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. >> A certain amount of camaraderie and it was with all Air Force officers. [Inaudible] right there. Then there were almost 200 men in barracks -- almost. Towards the end of the war there weren't. But we stayed in there for four months. And on two occasions I was shot at. And I'd broken a camp rule and I didn't know it. The other prisons I'd been in did not have the -- there were two parallel barbed wire fences with coiled barbed wire in between. Then about ten feet inside of that was one strand of wire with posts about two feet high. And my shoes laces come untied and I put my foot up there to tie my shoe lace and a shot rang and hit down by my -- close to my foot. And I looked up to see where it came from and the guard just said, you know -- I can't really say he had the right to kill me on the spot. I didn't know you wasn't supposed to touch -- that's the warning wire. And that's -- you don't touch it. But anyway he didn't want to kill me. Then we used to enjoy watching air raids. That was a great morale boost to see the American B-17s or whatever flying overhead. And we could go outside and watch and that was fine. That was a morale booster. But eventually the rules got changed and you supposed to stay inside the barracks when an air raid siren went off. But anyway, I was being curious I was leaning out like this looking out the window and a shot rang out and hit -- it missed me by three feet. So he could have killed me. He was about 50 yards away perhaps and he looked at me. I got my head back in. [Laughing] >> I learned fast. >> Exactly. Can you tell us about this picture? >> Yes, this picture was made in August of 1944. And this is my prison number down at the bottom there. And the abbreviations there stand for [Speaking foreign language]. That's POW camp number one. And that is located in Barth, Germany. [Inaudible] >> That's fine. And this -- how long were you in that particular prison? >> I was in there a total of a year. A year and two days to be exact. >> Wow. And that's what you're describing now. [Inaudible] >> Right. >> What was your treatment like? >> Well we got more food there than we got -- this was a [Inaudible] prison. The other prison I had been in had been Velmot -- Velmot meaning army. >> I see. [Inaudible] meaning? >> Air Force. >> Air Force, I see. >> They also had marine prisons for anyone in the Navy -- a merchant marine. But anyway, after they would occasionally have identification and role calls. Normally a role call was a head count. You know, [Inaudible] like that. But every once in awhile they'd have an identification role call. The smaller version of that picture on a little card and they'd call out your name and have you come up to the desk -- a table and then look, make sure that's you, and then you go visit the other side. So they'd make sure everybody matched up. They'd do that perhaps once a month unannounced. >> Okay, but what was your treatment like in that prison? Anything else eventful? The -- we were not beaten. There was -- the food was still scarce. We got -- the diet consisted mostly of black bread and potatoes. The black bread was made of -- very heavy -- it was made of -- I remember one of the ingredients was 20 percent saw dust and 10 percent straw ground up. And the rest of it was some nebulous kinds of grains. So it was very heavy, but we ate it. I find -- I learned that occasionally we'd get cabbage. >> Really? >> That was a fresh vegetable. That was unusual. Of course, that had to be in season. Then occasionally we'd get cooked barley. I'd never had barley in my life, but you eat anything. >> Right. >> And the barley with grub worms about the size -- I may be using the wrong term. I don't know what kind of worm it was, but it was white and about like this. And we'd scoop around and -- ah, meat with the barley. And you'd go and dispose of it. [Laughing] >> Then we'd still eat the barley. You can't afford to throw it out. Another time we'd got blood sausage. I'd never heard of it -- never heard the term. But it was made from blood -- animals. And I ate it. You find out that you will eat anything. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.