Eric Ryder: Liverpool magician makes magic in a German POW camp (Part 2)
In Part 2 of this blog about Liverpool-based magician ‘Eric’ Ryder, we learn how he used his magic skills to boost morale in Stalag VIII-B prisoner-of-war camp.
‘In the bag’
All Halifax L9566’s crew members survived their forced landing in the early morning of 11 September 1941, but they were quickly captured by German forces.
Sergeant ‘Eric’ Ryder and his colleagues were first sent to Dulag Luft (Oberursel), an interrogation and processing camp for captured air crew near Frankfurt.
One of the first individuals Ryder met in this camp was Lieutenant Commander John Casson from the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. While most prisoners only spent a few days or weeks in the Dulag Luft, Casson was a member of the permanent staff. Along with twenty others, he ran the camp inside the wire, helping new prisoners settle in, and liaising with the German commandant and his staff. Casson was caught in Norway in June 1940. Coincidentally, Casson was a keen amateur magician and a member of The Magic Circle. Given's Ryder’s interest in magic, the pair no doubt bonded quickly.
Read more about John Casson (‘The Magician of Stalag Luft III’) here.
Dulag Luft (Oberursel)
(Source: Public domain)
From Oberursel, POWs were despatched to other camps, by rail, crammed into cattle trucks with other prisoners. Given the POW number 9592, Ryder was sent to Stalag VIII-B.
Stalag VIII-B (later renumbered as Stalag 344) was a prisoner-of-war camp near the town of Lamsdorf [modern Lambinowice] in Silesia, south-west Poland. Opened in 1939, originally for Polish prisoners, Stalag VIII-B housed some 100,000 British and Allied POWs. A neighbouring camp, Stalag VIII-F, housed Soviet POWs.
Click this link to watch a video of another POWs experience at Stalag VIII-B.
Stalag VIII-B (Lamsdorf) POW camp
(Source: Public domain)
There was a main camp at Stalag VIII-B, where Ryder spent most of his time in captivity, and many satellite sites. Whether in the main camp or the satellite sites, the Allied POWs (except for commissioned officers) were put to work.
Over seven hundred Arbeitskommando or work parties were employed in a variety of settings, mostly in the many coal mines and quarries of Silesia, with some labouring in a nearby chemical works.
Despite this, the ‘Kriegies,’ as the POWs called themselves, produced plays and variety, ran a camp orchestra, organised sports competitions, and produced a camp newspaper. These kept up morale and helped ease the monotony of camp life and the austere conditions.
Performing magic in captivity
Keen to support their brother magician and expecting that a magician in captivity could do good work by entertaining his fellow captives, members of the Mahatma Circle of Magicians sent Ryder several sets of magical supplies.
Charities and other well-meaning organisations often sent recreational items to POW camps via the British Red Cross. Magic dealer Will Goldston, a fervent patriotic and former Territorial Army officer, was known for sending free magic books and tricks to prisoners of war. There also are reports of Lewis Davenport’s The Demon Telegraph (a magazine for magicians) making it into POW camps by mail.
The Mahatma Circular reported in March 1943 that they’d sent copies of various ventriloquial dialogue and card tricks to Ryder via a care package from his mother.
These packages arrived in the camp in Spring 1943. Confirmation of their arrival was published in a couple of months later:
“Sgt. Eric Ryder, who is a Prisoner of War in Germany, still maintains his magical interests, and recently received a box of tricks sent to him by his parents via the Red Cross organisation. Manuscripts of ventriloquial dialogue and card tricks have also been appreciated by him. Although there was a danger that the authorities might consider these to be some kind of code communication.” (The Mahatma Circular, June 1943)
Equipped with these props and with packs of playing cards which were available, Ryder contributed to the camp entertainment in Stalag VIII-B, joining the casts of variety shows and other productions as a magician.
A set of playing cards gifted to Allied POWs by the American Red Cross
(Source: Author's collection)
After Ryder was a prisoner for six months, the POWs opened a theatre in the camp. The Gaiety Theatre was made by converting one of the POW’s wooden accommodation huts for the purpose. The German commandant allowed the POW theatre staff to have a workshop for making sets. This enabled Ryder to make his own magic gimmicks and props, giving a boost to his repertoire.
“The Chinese Rings were constructed from wire purloined from the outside fence of the camp and the Dyeing Silks by procuring by devious methods a number of near silk handkerchiefs which were issue. He was able to construct an Inexhaustible Box from odd bits of timber and alarm clocks, which rested, from tins which once contained pudding and various other comestibles. A dressing gown cord, very ornate, was utilised for the Silks from Cord effect and used razor blades ground down were ideal for the Razor Blade effect. An old picture frame made a presentable Card Frame.” (The Mahatma Circular, August 1946)
Read about another example of a set of Chinese Rings manufactured in a POW camp here.
“With the above and a cigarettes routine and a pack of cards, Bro. Ryder could put over a strong programme. He said that he could work the same programme for 21 nights before any alteration was necessary because of the camp having an extremely large number of inmates.” (The Mahatma Circular, August 1946)
There were, of course, some oddities performing magic in the POW camp:
“The audiences were of mixed nationalities and Bro. Ryder related how after performing an effect, the applause would be meagre until perhaps half-way through his next effect when there would be a loud burst of applause for the previous trick. This, he said, was due to a large percentage of the audience being unable to understand English and by the time interpreters had passed on ‘the gen’ the next effect was well on its way.” (The Mahatma Circular, August 1946)
“Another amusing incident… took placed on an improvised stage which had large gaps between the boards. He was performing the Twentieth Century Silks effect and after tying the two silks together, he unfortunately dropped them, and they disappeared through the gap in the boards. To his surprise, a few moments later, a hand appeared through the boards, returning the silks. This caused great amusement to the audience, who could not be convinced that this was not Bro. Ryder’s method of doing a switch.” (The Mahatma Circular, August 1946)
Ventriloquism… ‘it speaks for itself’
After spending time in Stalag VIII-B’s main camp, where he established himself as the conjurer-in-residence, Ryder was sent by the Germans to work in one of the camp’s satellite sites, possibly in July 1943.
With a much-reduced number of inmates in this smaller camp, Ryder found that his magic repertoire was n’t extensive enough. He needed additional tricks and material, otherwise those regularly coming along to the camp shows would end up seeing him perform the same tricks.
Drawing on the books of routines sent to him in Spring 1943, Ryder made a ventriloquist’s doll.
“The head was made from cement and plaster of Paris and the body clothed in a cut down RAF uniform,” reported The Mahatma Circular in August 1943.
I haven’t tracked down a photograph of Ryder’s doll, but he sent one to his parents, which they shared with the members of the Liverpool magic club:
“It looks to be an excellent job and is a real monument to a great spirit under adverse circumstance. We cannot resist saying ‘it speaks for itself.’” (The Mahatma Circular, May 1944)
Ryder performed acts with this doll for over a year. He mixed standard scripts with in-jokes about the Germans and the experience of being a POW, providing much amusement and giving more variety in his programmes.
Joey the ventriloquist doll, made in Changi POW camp and used to entertain prisoners of war, from December 1944 until the end of the war, by Tom Hussey
(Source: Australia War Memorial)
Read about Mr Fritz, another ventriloquist doll from a World War Two POW camp here.
Pantomime time
As Ryder approached his third Christmas in captivity, he volunteered to take part in Stalag VIII-B’s pantomime. Alladin was the chosen pantomime (as it had been in Christmas 1942), and Ryder’s fellow POWs cast him to play the part of the magician. The loose plot provided a vehicle for him to perform a selection of his magic tricks.
In a letter home dated 29 November 1943, Ryder said that to allow rehearsals for the pantomime, the Germans allowed the cast and crew of The Gaiety Theatre to be “unchained.”
Most Allied POWs in German camps were not chained. But at Stalag VIII-B, for fourteen months, the prisoners’ hands were bound from 7am to 9pm daily, with an hour's freedom for lunch. They did this in retaliation for the alleged mistreatment of German prisoners during the Canadian raid on Dieppe. The POWs’ hands were tied with string taken from the packaging of Red Cross parcels until sufficient handcuffs were supplied.
An Allied POW with their hands chained at Stalag VIII-B (Lamsdorf)
(Source: Imperial War Museum)
Practising and performing magic in these conditions cannot have been easy; although no doubt Ryder used basic escapology techniques to free himself and others from the restraints when needed.
Repatriation
Malnutrition, disease, and illness were rife in Stalag VIII-B and Ryder suffered his share of these health issues.
He contracted diphtheria in November 1941, not long after he arrived at Stalag VIII-B and was confined to the hospital there for two months, returning to the main camp on 16 January 1942.
In May 1942, many of the RAF personnel in Stalag VIII-B were transferred at Stalag Luft III, which had opened a few months before and was intended to house all RAF pilots and aircrew in a Luftwaffe-administered camp.
‘Eric’ Ryder was left behind, in Stalag VIII-B, as he was back in hospital again when the evacuation took place.
Health concerns evidently plagued him, as in October 1944, he was interviewed by the Repatriation Commission to be considered for repatriation to the UK on medical grounds.
Articles 68 of the 1929 Geneva Convention, often called the “Prisoner of War Code,” states that:
“Belligerents shall be required to send back to their own country, without regard to rank or numbers, after rendering them in a fit condition for transport, prisoners of war who are seriously ill or seriously wounded. Agreements between the belligerents should determine as soon as possible, the forms of disablement or sickness requiring direct repatriation and cases which may necessitate accommodation in a neutral country.”
These repatriations, normally conducted as a prisoner exchange, were difficult to negotiate and arrange. Only ten repatriations took place. The last occurred at Kreuzlingen in Switzerland, where 5,000 Germans were exchanged for 25,000 Allied POWs. The Allied prisoners included Temporary Warrant Officer ‘Eric’ Ryder.
Once processed in Switzerland, Ryder was repatriated to the UK, by ship, arriving home in the Port of Liverpool on 1 February 1945.
Read about another POW-magician who was repatriated in a prisoner exchange here.
German POW card for POW No. 9592 Sergeant Charles Frederick Ryder
(Source: National Archives)
Ryder was one of the lucky ones. For just days after the exchange in January 1945, with the Red Army advancing from the east, the Germans evacuated Stalag VIII-B.
Along with tens of thousands of other Western Allied POWs held by the German military in camps across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany, the POWs in Stalag VIII-B were forced marched away from the advancing troops who might liberate them. Many of them died from the bitter cold and exhaustion until, eventually, they were liberated by the advancing US Army in late April 1945.
‘Eric’ Ryder survived four years and four months days in captivity, before he was repatriated.
Sadly, while ‘Eric’ was away, his father died, leaving his mother a widower.
Post-war
After recuperating, Ryder returned to active service, based in the UK.
World War Two ended in September 1945 and several months later, Ryder was demobbed.
He returned home to Liverpool and restarted attending the Mahatma Circle of Magicians’ club meetings.
When another magician scheduled to perform at a club meeting on 11 July 1946 cancelled at short notice, ‘Eric’ Ryder volunteered to give an impromptu talk on his time as a POW. We’re glad he did, because the club secretary took notes and published them in The Mahatma Circular, from which I’ve been able to put this blog together.
Of all the accounts of magicians performing magic in prisoner-of-war camps which I’ve come across, Ryder’s is the most detailed about the tricks he performed and how he got the props he needed.
Charles Frederick Seymour Ryder, magician-POW, died in 2004, aged 83.
*****
Read Part 1 of this post here, to find out how Ryder became a POW.
With thanks to the Liverpool Mahatma Magic Circle for their assistance with the preparation of this blog post.
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