George Lavallee (left end) and other surviors at the 1991 reunion
Embedded Files
George Lavalee
Spring, 1991
Brother George Aime Lavallee was among the Roman Catholic contingent of seventeen priests and teaching brothers aboard the Zamzam. All seventeen were interned in prisoner of war camps for the duration of the war. Even though four were American-born, they were all traveling on Canadian passports to facilitate entry into South Africa, which at that time was part of the British Commonwealth.
When Brother George attended the 1991 reunion of the Zamzam survivors, he read the following greeting which he had recently sent to the other seven remaining brothers and priests:
"Fifty years ago next June a 'caravan' of seventeen men of the cloth passed through the barbed wire gate of Stalag XB. They were on unfamiliar grounds and among unknown company.
"They had left New York (Hoboken) on the S. S. Zamzam, an Egyptian ship. Their destination was Basutoland (now Lesotha) in Southern Africa, but an attack at sea by the German raider Tamesis (Atlantis) initiated an odyssey on the prison ship Dresden, followed by days on a prison train and then incarceration behind barbed wire at Stalag XB and Marlag and Milag Nord for more than four wearisome, tedious and anxious years. These missionaries were not in the military service nor part of the merchant Navy; some were not even from a country at war. Four were American-born. (As explained above, they were all traveling on Canadian passports, however, and therefore interned.)
"It was an unexpected 'catch' for the Germans, because it allowed them to supply chaplains to POW camps as required by the Geneva Convention.
"Within two months after their arrival, the group of seventeen was split up: three were sent to Marlag and five went to POW camps in Silesia, Poland, and Austria.
"For those of us who remained at Milag there were activities in Church ministry, in counseling, in teaching, and, with time, in participation in sports: baseball, ice hockey, and even cricket!! ...
"As for the trials, the loneliness, the searches, the air raids, the starvation, the torments of being depersonalized, we POWs all know about that. However, as the playwrights remind us, 'calamity is man's true touchstone'. (Beaumon and Fletcher, The Triumph of Honor)
"We also experienced some moments of peaceful contentment brought by a letter, or by participation at church service on Sundays and feast days, or by a budding friendship which would last for a lifetime, or a hope of repatriation or the euphoria of liberation.
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