The Russians liberated Majdanek on July 24, 1944 -Gerry and I arrived there around the end of January or beginning of February, 1945. 1 took the following photos of the camp with the GI 35mm Kodak I recovered from Oflag 64.
| We met Jane Walker, a
British subject, in Lublin and traveled with her on box cars to Odessa, Russia where we
boarded a British ship to Port Said, Egypt. My wife kept up a correspondence with Jane
Walker who was living in Bexhill-on Sea, England, and in 1948, Jane visited us when I was
stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. There, we learned the fascinating story of her life.
|
Jane Walker |
| Jane's father was Military Attached in Berlin prior to W.W.I and Jane was educated in Germany. During W.W.I she made 18 courier trips from Berlin to Switzerland for the British. Prior to W.W.I she worked for British Intelligence in South Africa (Boer War) and later in Palestine with General Glubb and Lawrence of Arabia. Prior to W.W.II, she was sent to Poland where she first learned Polish and when Britain entered the war against Germany, she worked with the Polish underground in acts of sabotage and in returning downed fliers back to Britain. She showed us a Polish newspaper photo of the results of the robbery of the German pay truck in Warsaw. Jane's roll was to drive a farm cart loaded with cabbages that had its wheel modified to come off. As the pay truck came down a narrow street, Jane drove the cart across blocking the road. The wheel came off, the cart fell on its axle, and cabbages spilled out over the street. The Poles jumped the truck ,and the Germans, and made off with the payroll. The photo showed Jane still in the street picking up her cabbages and the truck with the dead Germans draped all over it. |  Frankfurt 1948 L to R. Ginny Angelini, Jane Walker and Vivian Keith at Rhine Main AFB. The plane was used as part of the Berlin Airlift. |
 Janes's headstone at Bexhill-on-Sea, in England, 1961 |
She received the MBE (Order of the British Empire for Merit), the highest award given to civilians. She also received an invitation and reserved seat to the coronation of Elizabeth II. Jane also appeared on the BBC show, This is Your Life. Jane died in 1962 a year after we visited her in her home at Bexhill-on-Sea, England. She was 84, nearly blind and hobbling from the after effects of a broken hip. A truly remarkable lady! |
Visit the Majdanek Extermination camp site at: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/poland/Majdanek/Majdanek.html
Page design by: Q. Brian Sickels '71