German POWs were happy folks

The happiest people I ever met were German prisoners who helped me put on my roller skates near the end of World War II.

My buddies and I were all kids, barely old enough to get on the bus unaccompanied by an adult. We all needed help getting into our skates and adjusting them properly — and the German soldiers working at the roller rink were happy to help.

Their happiness was so pronounced that it became contagious and we all enjoyed being at the skating rink on Fort Devens, Massachusetts. The prisoners wore gray uniforms with “POW” painted on the back but the grim lettering did nothing to detract from their upbeat attitude.

The Germans were happy for several reasons. They had been captured by American or British soldiers after the invasion of Normandy — and they were shipped from France to Massachusetts to get them out of the war zone and into a quiet part of Fort Devens to wait out the end of hostilities. They were almost certainly transported aboard newly emptied vessels used to bring Americans to the war zone.

Since many of their friends and comrades had been killed, wounded or captured by Russian soldiers, the prisoners who worked at the Fort Devens roller rink had drawn the golden straws. For most of them, it was almost certainly just the luck of the draw. After the massive invasion of Normandy, the Americans wanted German combatants out of the war zone and shipped them as quickly as they could to places where they were unlikely to become problems for their captors — as far from the war zone as was feasible.

Some went here, some went there and all were issued prisoner uniforms and assigned to jobs that would otherwise go to American civilians. And at the tail end of World War II there weren’t that many civilians left. Young American men were being drafted and young women were volunteering for whatever jobs needed filling.

The German soldiers who wound up at the roller rink knew that they had been phenomenally lucky and they were as happy as they could be about it. My friends and I were too young to fully understand what was going on, but we could tell the Germans were delighted by their circumstances and their happiness was contagious. None of us spoke German and the prisoners spoke little English but they were able to communicate their feelings of good fortune.

Most of the kids took a bus to the roller rink on Saturdays. It was transportation we could afford, with a little help from our parents, and the drivers could be counted on to keep the kids out of trouble.

World War II was a strange time by any measure, especially in Army towns like Ayer, Massachusetts. And we kids were learning a lot, probably more than was good for us. I’m not sure how I came to realize that the German soldiers were so delighted by their luck of the draw. Helping kids on with their skates didn’t seem such a noble calling, certainly nothing to warrant the cheery attitude of the prisoners. I guess I came to my conclusions about the source of their happiness in the years after the war ended and the German prisoners were sent back to their homes.

I can’t say that I ever learned much about skating, though I spent a lot of time whizzing around a very noisy rink. Perhaps it was lesson enough that young men just a few years older than I was had found unfathomable reason to be joyous.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of five books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.