German Colonial POW items...

[Chris Boonzaier]

Fort Napier in South Africa housed many German captives in WW1, most from German South West Africa, although I have not been able to find the article there is one about the artisanal work made in the camp by the POWs.

Here are a couple of items. The first I am not sure if it is in fact from napier, an uncle gave it to me, all he knows is it is made by a POW, from the way it is made it looks similar to the belt buckle, which is 100% from Fort napier.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Back of the two, you can see the belt fittings are removed..

[Chris Boonzaier]

engraving of Karl Storck

[Chris Boonzaier]

The curtains and bows are real gold, the rest silver

[Chris Boonzaier]

It is hard to show how detailed the work really is...

[Chip]

Chris,

Where does a POW get gold to make such things? You would think the captors would confiscate any gold. Since he was obviously an artisan, perhaps he had done some work for the Brits and they allowed him this indulgence.

Chip

Edited December 29, 2005 by Chip

[Chris Boonzaier]

Chris,

Where does a POW get gold to make such things? You would think the captors would confiscate any gold. Since he was obviously an artisan, perhaps he had done some work for the Brits and they allowed him this indulgence.

Chip

Hi,

From what I have read, Napier held 6000 Germans, funtioned a bit like a village. Maybe there was a jeweller amongst them who made the items for the guys? As I said, I have seen mentions of fantastic POW arts and crafts etc from the fort. I think civilians were interened as well. I dont think anyone had anything confiscated, no mentions are made of this any any literature from the area.

There are a couple of documents on this guy in the pretoria archives, apparently he was only released in 1919... way..way after the other POWs, some were released during the war already.

[Tom Y]

Hi,

From what I have read, Napier held 6000 Germans, funtioned a bit like a village. Maybe there was a jeweller amongst them who made the items for the guys? As I said, I have seen mentions of fantastic POW arts and crafts etc from the fort. I think civilians were interened as well. I dont think anyone had anything confiscated, no mentions are made of this any any literature from the area.

There are a couple of documents on this guy in the pretoria archives, apparently he was only released in 1919... way..way after the other POWs, some were released during the war already.

If I had an artist like that in my clutches I'd be reluctant to let him go too.

[Paul R]

Those are some great items Chris! Whoever made them had some real talent! I could not imagine making anything like this in a POW setting, as I am sure that the tools were quite homemade.

[Colin Davie]

The situation would have to have been very relaxed, apart from the gold the biggest drawback I would have though would be the multitude of very sharp tools needed to do this sort of work, not the sort of thing you give to a POW in the norm.

Great items and very interesting to see.

C