RELATIVES of ex-prisoners of war from one of Europe’s largest POW camps will attend an international reunion in Canberra this weekend and “CityNews” theatre writer, Joe Woodward, has a part to play.

It’s the fourth reunion in the past seven years of family and friends from around the world who are linked to ex-POWs imprisoned at Stalag 18A in Wolfsberg, southern Austria, from 1941 to 1945, including Woodward’s late father Jack, a fiddler whose experiences his son represented in the play, “Violine”, staged some years ago at The Street Theatre.

As the final event of the Reunion, Joe Woodward’s company, Shadow House PITS is presenting a reading of five short stories by Jack Woodward this Sunday at The Mercure. With music by Jack’s grandson, Tom Woodward, the stories are part of Jack’s book “A Bloke in Our Unit”. He was incarcerated in Stalag 18A and a nearby work-camp between 1941 and 1945 as a prisoner of war. While fictional, the stories reference actual events.

“More than 48,000 prisoners-of-war were incarcerated at Stalag 18A and its 300-plus work camps in the region between 1940 to 1945, including about 11,000 British and Allied forces,” says one of the reunion organisers, Carole Mules.

“There has been a huge surge of interest in recent years by relatives eager to learn about their loved ones’ war history… We’ve got more than a thousand people who are actively involved with our Stalag 18A website and our Stalag 18A Facebook page.”

Mules notes that one of the most famous ex-Stalag 18A prisoners of war was the late Clive Dunn, who later played Lance Corporal Jones in the BBC comedy series “Dad’s Army”.

“We’ve got relatives of former Stalag 18A POWs coming from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and around Australia for this three-day reunion, which will include wreath laying, a theatre performance, speeches and other commemorations at the Australian War Memorial and Mercure Canberra hotel,” she says.

In 2015, about 5000 photographs and handprints of prisoners taken on their arrival at Stalag 18A in 1941 were discovered at the Naturhistoriches Museum in Vienna. Many Stalag 18A relatives have been sent copies of these photos by the museum – for some, it is their only photograph of their loved one’s time as a prisoner of war.

The Stalag 18A group plans to hold another reunion in Wolfsberg, Austria, in 2021 – the 80th anniversary of many POWs’ capture – and hopes to unveil a memorial to commemorate the many thousands of Allied prisoners of war who were incarcerated at Stalag 18A during World War II.

Five short stories by Jack Woodward with music by Tom Woodward, The Mercure, Ainslie, 1pm, on Sunday, March 3, all welcome.  For more information about the reunion, phone 0408 708361 or email [email protected] or [email protected].

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