E72 Beuthen / Bytom

Working Party E72 Beuthen. (By Christine Parry)

E 72 was at the Hohenzollern Coalmine in Beuthen, now Bytom. Two other working parties were associated with this mine, E411 was the sawmill providing pit props (the two parties were described together in Red Cross reports) and E593 which was a Palestinian group based just along the road in Schönberg (now Szombierki).

The Hohenzollern mine was before the war one of the most modern and efficient coalmines in Europe. In 1929 the distinctive brick built winding gear tower was constructed. This is the only part of the mine to survive.

The men worked a 13 day shift, with one Sunday in two off, cleaning their clothes in the shower on the last day. My father described the work.

The coal face was 3m x 3m and 1m was blasted off by explosives inserted into the face by drilling approx. 1 m holes. On our way to the face we collected clay from stone bins for plugging the explosive holes. Morning and afternoon shifts moved 2m of coal and the night shift extended the rutsche (shaker) by two metres ready for the next day shift. 

Coal was shovelled onto what dad described as a shaker, (he couldn’t remember the proper word),  and was then fed onto a conveyor belt that ran to fill the empty wagons which overhead cables hauled to the shaft.

There were rats down the mine but no gas. It had electricity throughout and  bright lights.

Seams were 18m deep, dug out in three layers, and then filled with sand. OK doing the bottom layer, standing on rock, after that working on sand. They were told never to try and hide in the pit, pumps were working all the time or would flood in 24hrs.

Miners would always warn ‘vorsichtig’ – take care, would listen for sounds of collapse. No one died in the mine, or at the camp, only in hospital.

During the winter the POWs were often pleased to go down the mine out of the cold. They could only play football if off duty guards would come and guard them.

There was one particularly brutal German guard, Unterofficier Engleskirche, known to the POWs as ‘John the bastard’.  He shot at least two prisoners and was wanted for war crimes after the war, but he was never found.

After the war the mine foreman Spaniol was tried for war crimes and convicted to seven years imprisonment in September 1947, but this was revoked in December 1951.

Another account of Working Party E72, Beuthen (Bytom) Hohenzollern coalmine with POWs accommodated at Schomberg (Szombierki), can be found in this extract from ‘Against The Wind’ by Cyril Rofe. Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1956