Christoph,
I am getting out a few of the original documents with the postmarks and one of them has translated Gefangenennummer:-- with No. du prisonnier under it. My Dad has handwritten in this space 13012. Now obviously the Americans did not give him that number. I wonder how that number was generated? And how could 1 Camp know what number to use if other Camps were using numbers. Did each Camp get a block/range of numbers to use? Maybe there really were lists kept at each Camp?
Oh so many questions...
Tomorrow I will scan a couple of the seals.
Bye for now,
Jean J
Jean
I just got a book this morning about the abbey, including an article written by sister Edeltrud Koch! So I can say, here are people having heard from her.
I'm afraid she hasn't written much about the POWs, I will translate some parts and post them here.
Steinfeld is a small village in the Eifel west of the Rhine. The small abbey there was built in 1958/59. They have a website: www.benediktinerinnen-steinfeld.de, if you cannot read the text you can watch the pictures 
Christoph
Christoph,
You are something! I apologize for not having learned German. What a mistake.
Is this a book I can purchase? I realize it is written in German.
What an exciting discovery! And I appreciate anything you translate from it.
The photos you sent of her last Abbey were beautiful.
I wonder if her younger brother is still alive. He may have no personal memories of that era of their life but maybe she shared things with him. I would love to hear memories about her. She was so sweet to respond to Nina.
More to follow,
Jean J
Oops, I have found the button to attach files
. But kmz-files are not allowed
My father has already tried to take look on the find book, but at the archive they are on vacation this week. He will try again as he is quiet interested himself.
Christoph
I'd have to think about that one Christoph, for I have to be wary of really large files, for I only have so much storage on my server at present time. Right now we only allow some image files such as jpgs, and document files such as pdfs. Even then the file size is still limited.
Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter 'Monday' Poniedzialek
540th Combat Engineer - H&S Company
Marion, If Christopher can email me the files, my husband can put them up on a server that we have. If that is a solution, let me know. You can tell me how long we should leave it up - a few months or whatever. Thank You, as always, for managing this great site! It is obvious that you are passionate for the War and the Veterans and for helping others!
Christoph, I have 3 of the postmarks for you. My husband set up a server with the postmarks on it after he scanned them and made them readable. Here is the link to them.
www.jjworld.com/images/POWLetter1.jpg
www.jjworld.com/images/POWLetter2.jpg
www.jjworld.com/images/POWLetter3.jpg
I am still thinking of Sister Edeltrud Koch, and so sad. I would love to go to her Abbey in Steinfeld. The flights are so full right now and it is so hard to leave Mom. But still thinking of it ...
Jean J
Jean, that's sounds like a great idea. Thanks for jumping in and helping!
Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter 'Monday' Poniedzialek
540th Combat Engineer - H&S Company
Jean,
Good news, stop beeing sad!
I also googled for Sister Edeltrud Koch and found the obituary notice, but saw it came from southern Germany. Koch is a very common name, so I called the benedictines in Steinfeld and asked for her. Sister Gracia there told me that Sister Edeltrud Koch still lives there beeing the oldest of the sisters. She remembers a lot but doesn’t hear well, so she said speaking to Sister Edeltrud on phone was not recommended. Sister Gracia asked to send a letter and she is shure that Sister Edeltrud will be happy to receive it and to answer it.
You will find her address on the website of the cloister. If you want, you can write the letter as message to me, I would translate it and return it so you could send it yourself, if you do not want to ask your german friends.
Christoph
Oh my God, The trumpets are playing!!!!
I will write in a second - so excited!
Jean J
The book "Oben auf dem Berg" in which Sister Edeltrud has written some pages is edited by Dr Andrea Korte-Böger from the Siegburg archive and availble as e-book at amazon:
Interesting that the e-book is only available via amzon.com and not amazon.de, but because of all the pictures I like my hardcopy, also from amazon;-)
Christoph
Guys I still can not believe the good news that Christoph has delivered!!
Marion, I am honored to be able to help you out! You see and realize how much you help me and others!!! The first thing is you will have to send the files to me (and you have my email address). Then my husband, Steve, will put the file/files up on the Server and will provide a link to that file. Steve needs to know from you where to send those links so people can get them.
Now Christoph I am still in shock! Thank goodness you dug deeper to see what you could find out.
If my husband and I were able to get to the Abbey, would it be possible for you (and maybe your Dad would want to come too) to meet us there? I would certainly reimburse you. I am thinking of ways to do this.
I am also thinking of what to write in a letter.
I am going to call the Nortons now. And I have already sent Nina a message responding to her message of sadness over her death (which was caused by my incorrect message.). Nina is moving back from NYC to Berlin in a couple of weeks. Maybe she would want to join us there as well.
Wow! I am still in shock. ( I did work on the Dryden puzzle today because of the now non deceased Sister.)
Bye for the moment,
Jean J
Of course we could meet at the or other abbey.
In the mentioned book is a description of the air raid on 28th Dec 1944 written by Sister Edeltrud which (the air raid, not Edeltrud) destroyed big parts of the abbey though it was marked with a big red cross on the roof and the allied forces knew there were POW. Germany made a complaint in Geneva to clear the reason, and the British apologized, the abbey was bombed by mistake, they wanted to hit the railway station, they said. I didn't know there were such complaints and answers in WWII!
Already before they started winding up the hospital, the casualties were postponed to Arnsberg, they were replaced by severely wounded soldiers from the front.
When the Americans came in April, the last Sisters and friars should be brought into internment camps, writes Sister Edeltrud. An Armenian POW called Daniel who was medicated at the hospital tried to negotiate with the Americans and told them how good he was treated there. He was successful and the soldiers disengaged.
I found another text also mentioning sister Edeltrud as source. It says that the first chief of the hospital was surgeon major (?) Dr Schlickum. When he was the first there must have been others, I think. There was also a Senior County Medical Officer of Health, Dr Bange, but I'm not shure whether he came from the miltitary hospital in the Abbey, from the "normal" hospital or the county council.
Christoph
Christoph,
The book still can not be ordered or the Kindle version yet, from what I can see. But with your information I will regularly check to see when it is available. Thank you very much.
In the photo the mortuary is the 1st curved door on the left. It is the door that is between the 1st 2 cars on the left. My Dad felt pretty sure of that when he saw the shape of the door and its location. I am having difficulty attaching the photo to this entry. So I will ask Marion.
Marion, my husband said I need to ask, " how do I upload media to the website"
Next thing that I referred to and want to send you is the Red Cross Map of the Camps. You will see that Siegburg is not on there! Once I learn how to attach a scanned item I will do this one too.
And I am still stunned over the Sister news! Thank You ever so much Christoph! I am trying to figure out what to do....
Jean J
Well, what a day and now a night for you Christoper!
So happy that we can work out a trip with you to meet the Sister. And I loved reading what she wrote and you so kindly interpreted.
I was thinking that I recently borrowed a book from a Polish gal whose parents were in work Camps in the War. She knew how passionate I was about the War and my Dad's story and so she has loaned me a book whose title is International Tracing Service. Catalogue of Camps and prisons in German and German Occupied Territories Sept. 1939 to May 1945. It is hard to scan but I will attach a few of the pages that I did scan when I know how to do so. You might be able to figure out what you want me to look for in there. Also maybe I would bring it to Germany when I meet you so then you could figure out what part/parts would be useful for you. Actually it is pretty big and heavy.
Now I am surprised like you are about the Red Cross on roof and that episode. I know Dad was furious that the Red Cross was not sending anything there. Fascinating!
Jean J
I can't find it now, doh, but someone asked about uploading files. If you are posting to a brand new topic, the upload files button will be in the lower left hand corner. However only certain files can be uploaded and there is a 2 MG limit on each file.
If you are replying to this topic and want to upload, then simply click on the MORE REPLY OPTIONS button and...
More help is in the HELP SECTION of this forum, for tips on how to do everything.
Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter 'Monday' Poniedzialek
540th Combat Engineer - H&S Company
Marion and Christoph,
Let me see if this works. I have attached the 3 items I referred to in a prior entry.
Christoph, is the City where Sister Koch is located in Steinfeld, Germany?
Jean J
BarbarasCatalogueCampsAndPrisons.pdf
