A FORMER Nazi captive aged 100 has told how he was forced to dig Adolf Hitler’s bunker.
Ches Black was taken by lorry to in 1944 as part of the forced labour drive known as Organisation Todt.
Former Nazi captive Ches Black, 100, has told how he was forced to dig Adolf Hitler’s bunkerCredit: Graham Drucker
Hitler died in 1945Credit: AFP
Hitler’s command bunkerCredit: Getty – Contributor
Aged 19, he was dispatched by the Reich Chancery in with hundreds of workers, German soldiers and others to dig a deep hole by hand.
It was not until the end of the war that he learnt it was the site of ’s bunker, where he killed himself in 1945 with new bride as the Allies closed in.
Ches, of Stoke Row, Oxon, said: “We had no idea what it was for.
“We were just digging a hole and didn’t know we were protecting Hitler.
“Only after the war we found out.”
Ches was born Czeslaw Blachucki and during the war lived with his parents in Vilnius — then part of but now Lithuania.
In 1944, he was rounded up by the Nazis, loaded into a cattle wagon with 40 others and taken to Berlin.
He never saw his mother again.
Ches said: “We were forced labour.
“It was sandy and we just had a wheelbarrow and shovels and worked by hand.
“It was quite deep — as a person in the hole you looked up and up.”
Later, Ches was deployed to Italy, where he transported timber.
He escaped the Nazis, joining Polish resistance fighters until the end of the war.
Unable to return to -run Poland after 1945, he ended up working for 29 years at a car factory in Cowley, Oxford.
He was married to June for 72 years, having four children.
Ches is recalling his experiences as part of a history project, and to keep alive the memory and heritage of Polish soldiers and refugees placed in Oxfordshire resettlement camps after the war.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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