Willi Zeighenheist

Les Tuffley Photo Collection

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Willi Zeighenheist

Prisoner-of-War at Bradley Court Farm, Mitcheldean 1945. Repatriated in 1946. His home was in East Germany.
He had previously been in the P.O.W. camp at Wynols Hill, Broadwell.
On the reverse side of the original photograph, written in German, was "In remembrance of the camp in the year 1944"

Further information from Dave Tuffley: The photo of Willi Zeighenheist is of a German prisoner of war that worked at Bilbut Farm, Mitcheldean, for Jack Batt and his family.
Willi was one of three prisoner-of-war who did the manual labour on the farm and proved to be a conscientious worker. My father told me that the Batts
said that Willi warned them that one of the prisoners was still a right Nazi and that they had to be careful what they said to Willi in front of this man.
Willi loved a tin of sardines and when he was later repatriated back to Germany, he had to go back to the Soviet occupied part.
The Batts later received a letter from him which was not signed but made reference to the sardines, so they knew exactly who had wrote it.
The Batts could not reply as there was no address on the letter, only a post mark from somewhere in East Germany so that the local
authorities could not trace him. They always said that they would love to see him walking up the farm drive once again.