On 21 February 1945 Eberhard Wendler wrote in his diary:
‘Received a letter from Willy and Gertrud posted on 28 November 1944. Bought myself a pair of scissors for 2 shillings’
[Evidently the postal service was still slow. Many useful items were bought, sold, and bartered among the prisoners. Two shillings (10 pence in decimal currency) represented a prisoner-of-war’s wages for two days of farm work. Cigarettes were also used as currency: four cigarettes were worth about one shilling].Clearly little of note happened during the next three weeks or so, because Eberhard makes no entries of any consequence until mid-March. We’ll join him again then – seventy years on!