S L I D E  S H O W  of  S T A L A G   I Barth Germany

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Slide 8

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Typical lay-out of barracks. Usually there were 12 to 16 men to a room. Notice the open tunnel outside this barracks. Over 140 tunnels were dug in Stalag I. The biggest problem was what to do with the dirt. We tried dumping it into the latrine pits, but they soon caught on to that. We tried putting the dirt up into the ceiling untill it began to sag from the weight of the dirt. Finally the answer was: Dig a dummy tunnel, making it easy for the Germans to find and cave in. As we were allowed to walk inside the camp perimeter, it was easy for us to drop two handfulls of dirt into the caved in tunnel whenever we passed by. The Germans never noticed that the pile of dirt in the caved in tunnel kept growing. None of these tunnels proved to be a succesful escape route. The Germans must have had an electrical alarm  device which was set off by the vibrations caused by the digging.

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