By saberhagen 27 March , in Soldiers and their units. I'm not entirely sure whether Cottbus No. I was the main camp at Cottbus, or whether it was a different camp. Ives who went to take charge of the prisoners and bring them home at the end of the war said that Cottbus-Sielow consisted of two camps: one at Cottbus where most of the British prisoners were, and one at Sielow which was mainly full of Russians.
Would No. I be either of these, or might it be a work camp rather than a head camp? In any case, would the theatre most likely be at the head camp regardless of what or where No. I was? The reason I'm asking is that I'm exploring the possibilities of Flickr for storing and sharing Great War photos, and one of its features is the ability to drag the photos onto a map to show where they were taken.
Gavin - I have just come across this photo-postcard from Cottbus, depicting a scene from the English Theatre.
The two men in drag appear to be playing prostitutes - it would be fantastic if anyone could put a name to them! That's a great photo. It looks a lot less formal than the ones I've seen before. I don't think my GGF is in it and so far I don't know the names of anyone else he was with. You can see all my Cottbus photos on Flickr and maybe compare faces. The signature of the artist I think is L. There are other names in the drawing too of which W. I do not know if this will interest anyone but it seems a shame that such a piece of history should remain hidden away in a folder.
In his papers I have found a set of sketches that show some of the people in the camp. It was in poor condition so I have scanned it and used digital photo editing to clean up the background. A small version of the drawing is attached and I will happily email a full size version on request.
