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Private J. D. Caves: The Long Journey Home

[section]

"Onwards, ever onwards..."

page 120
This 29 March 1945 Red Cross letter contained little information for friends and relatives back home about what was really happening with the POWs in Central Europe

This 29 March 1945 Red Cross letter contained little information for friends and relatives back home about what was really happening with the POWs in Central Europe

page 121

The Great March

Many New Zealand POWs from Teschen had been assigned to work camps further east in the coalmines of Silesia, including at Milowitz near Katowice in modern day Poland. The kiwi coalminers from Milowitz, nearer the advancing Red Army, were evacuated not long after Christmas 1944. Denis was not at the mines and was instead working further west on the railway at Oderburg on the Czech border northwest of Teschen. Oderburg was evacuated suddenly on 27 January 1945, although it's apparent from Denis' hastily scribbled note, "8pm: Grand Trek or retreat from Moscow?" that he had an idea of what was happening.

The column of kiwi coalminers from Milowitz passed into eastern Sudetenland in late January, and Denis' group from Oderburg may have joined this column. The POWs marched approximately 12 miles per day, and in early February they were climbing into the mountains on the Czech border with no definite destination.