Enduring the Unthinkable: The lasting effects of being a WWII prisoner of war

Article written by Amynte Eygun, MA.
Westmount, Quebec – 29 October 2024: While there is no doubt that the men who forcibly spent time in German prison camps were not treated well, per say, they were not tortured in the same heartless way that Jewish and Soviet civilians were in camps like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The men were living in the rough environment of a prison camp but they generally had access to food, water, outdoor access and medical care. They also usually had access to the Red Cross parcels that would be sent from Canada, however it was common for the Germans to take the parcels for themselves. Even though the German captors loosely followed the laws of the Geneva Convention, put in place to protect and treat prisoners humanely, the months spent in captivity were not a time of leisure and rest.
The young Canadians that came to Europe to fight on the frontlines volunteered to do so, usually out of patriotism, so being a prisoner of war robbed them of the ability to fight. Becoming a prisoner of war was difficult physically but it was more-so mentally difficult. “Becoming a prisoner of war could be understood by their contemporaries as “sitting in direct opposition to the exalted model of masculinity that total war demands of men of fighting age: that of the ‘soldier hero’”[1]

To understand the post-war effects of being a POW, one must acknowledge the trauma the young men endured on the battlefield, seeing their friends and fellow soldiers being killed and wounded all around them. The feeling of failure that would have taken over once they were captured would have been all-encompassing. These men, many of them coming from traditional civilian jobs before the war, were not mentally equipped for the events of the war, to see their own dying and to see the most evil traits of human beings. Many prisoners of war spent years behind the barbed wire in Axis prison camps all over Europe and in Asia, but the RMR men who were taken prisoner spent about 6 months at Stalag XI-B. In the grand scheme of prison camps, Stalag XI-B was not the worst, and the treatment of prisoners stayed mostly humane. However, the emotional stress and fear of being a POW could affect any man no matter how long he was imprisoned. The mental state of a young man who volunteered to go serve his country, who is seen by his family and country as a hero, and who had already seen an unreasonable amount of death and suffering would be fragile once captured as a POW, as his identity as a soldier, as a hero and as human in general is taken away. They would have felt useless to the war, to their regiments, not knowing when they would be freed. Being a prisoner of war triggered PTSD in many Canadian soldiers, many of whom would never recount the stories of their time in the camps. The human brain is not meant to be subjected to such evil, torture and disregard for human beings, and this ultimately damages the mental health of anyone who saw or experienced it.

The men of the RMR captured at Leopold Canal were lucky ones, as they were not tortured physically or on the brink of death by the time they were released. They all survived and went on to live full lives after the war, but it is not surprising to learn that many of the men would refuse to speak of their time as POWs and even the entire war itself. The trauma of prison camps would have stayed with them for the rest of their lives, even though it only consisted of a few months of their lives.
[1] Sarafina Pagnotta “Curating Community behind Barbed Wire: Canadian Prisoner of War Wart from the Second World War” Genealogy, 8(2), 54. 2024. 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8020054