Plans are underway to turn part of the 'prisoners compound' into a museum. Hopefully by Summer 2005, eight of the huts will be open to the public and will include the theatre and recreation hut, which houses 10 murals painted by a homesick prisoner.
After featuring in BBC's restoration programme there has been a massive amount of interest in the camp including an ex-pow who made England his home.
Rudi Lux was born in Pomerania (which is now part of Poland) in February 1929. In the latter stages of WWII the German forces were depleted and attacked by the Russians to the East & the Americans to the West. All able-bodied males were made to fight for their country. Rudi & his schoolmates were given rudimentary training, an armband to replace the uniform & no weapon! They had to fight but were given their choice of foe. Six weeks later Rudi was captured by the advancing Americans aged 16 & the youngest POW in that conflict. He was in other camps before he came to Harperley in 1946.
After WWII Rudi was unable to return to his home town, now in the Communist Eastern Block, but able to live and work in Britain where he eventually married and settled locally. Even until 1961 Rudi still reported to his local Police Station as a Displaced Person and worked as a farm labourer until then. Rudi’s input has been instrumental in recent past, present and future plans at Harperley. He became unwell at Christmas 2003 and consulted his GP only to be diagnosed with a terminal illness from which he subsequently died, 11 th March 2004, in Morpeth. Because he never repatriated Rudi saw Harperley as part of the Germany he remembered. His ashes are scattered here in RUDI’S ROSE GARDEN which is dedicated to his memory.
