Hands Across the Water - German POW Friend

My uncle lied about his age to get into the army during the Second World War. Thus he spent his eighteenth birthday in an Italian prisoner of war camp. My mother (his sister-in-law) who had looked after him since his parents died when he was about fourteen, used to send him food parcels.

When the war ended and my uncle was released, one of these parcels was still in transit and somehow was sent to a German prisoner of war (presumably somewhere in England - though I never found out where). The boy who received this parcel was called Guenter and he wrote to thank my mother for her present, even though he realised it had not been intended for him. He must have been about sixteen (he later told me he had been conscripted from the Hitler Youth as a radio officer, at the end of the war when they were desperate for men). My mother wrote back and sent him another parcel.

They became penfriends and Guenter used to send us fabulous parcels of German specialities every Christmas, when I was a child. They kept in touch, exchanging Christmas cards, until my mother died a few years ago. Guenter came over for her funeral and told us many of these things.

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