WW1 Internee - Heinrich Henkel

The basis for this page is "My German Family in England" by Roy Bernard published by Anglo-German Family History Soc 1991 (ISBN 0-9514133-5-X), which covers his grandfather Heinrich Henkel and family. Being written in 1991 it was before the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.) placed images of its PoW records online which made research considerably easier - in fact he includes an image of one of the I.C.R.C. records but gives no reference for it nor does he seem aware that the date of the record was in the bottom left hand of the page.

Heinrich (Henry) Henkel had come to London as a baker's assistant by 1881 when he was noted as 17, in 1898 he married another German immigrant and by 1899 was entered in a trade directory as having his own bakery business in in Tower Street Southwark(later following a boundary change in Lambeth) - by 1914 the couple had 6 living children four daughters and two sons the eldest of whom was to die aged 16 in an industrial accident in January 1918. The family home and business at Tower Street was ransacked during the riots that followed the sinking of the Lusitania - as it seems only women and children were present Roy Bernard surmises that Heinrich was already interned.

He can be found in I.C.R.C. record D-45-8, dated 24 July 1915, age 51 born Grindensberg with address of 29a Barbel St Lambeth London and noted at Knockaloe with PoWIB index number of 38916 - unfortunately there is no simple relationship between PoWIB number and the actual camp number, these would not be noted on I.C.R.C. records until 1916 but by looking at the majority of those with PoWIB numbers within ± 50 it is likely he was moved to the IoM around the 23rd or 24th June. The 10 days between 17th June and 26th June saw the period of fastest growth of the Knockaloe camps with just under 4000 internees arriving. Several with PoWIB numbers close to 38916 were given camp numbers in the range 10000-10500 and placed in camp II and probably in compounds 5 or 6. The press noted that two of these sailings were by the S.S. Manxman and that one was '"Mostly artisans and businessmen" - though no originating camp was given it is possible these came from Alexandra Palace as many of those with close PoWIB numbers had London addresses. Bernard quotes Heinrich's eldest daughte, speaking many decades later, that he was arrested in the middle of the night and taken to a camp near a large park, but not Alexandra Palace well north of London, but one much nearer to their home in South London where they visited him often and took him food parcels. Possibly this was Feltham which would be easy to reach by rail.

No further I.C.R.C. entries that might indicate his camp number can be found. He apparently kept a diary, mainly it seems noting the weather and letters or parcels received or sent - that for 1917 but used during both 1917 and 1918 has survived and on 7 July 1918 he writes "Das dritte mal Geburtstag auf dieser Teufils Insel" - the third birthday on this Devil's Island - which supports his arrival in June 1915 as well as his appreciation of the poor food and accommodation. As he notes the arrival of letters and his replies to them, it is a pity that none survived as these would have given his Knockaloe camp number.

One letter however has survived and that is dated 26 July from Frith Hill Frimley detention centre where he is noted as internee number 20161 - Frith Hill was one of the earliest internment camps but the civilian section closed in late 1914 and it was used in the following years for military prisoners - it does not appear in the civilian records until mid 1919 which suggests it was used to decant those still held in Alexandra Palace awaiting decisions of repatriation committees when Alexandra Palace reverted to its peacetime role - the quoted camp numbers for releases from Frith Hill would appear to match those found previously at Alexandra Palace. As the civilian internees were housed in tents it would appear that it was seen as a temporary holding camp. The UK press had been pushing for all Germans no matter what family links they had in Britain should be repatriated as soon as possible. Possibly the several months the various tribunals sat were a possible delaying mechanism as it is noticeable in Knockaloe records that after the initial large repatriation groups ceased in March 1919 that only a few men were released or repatriated until August 1919 when the trickle of releases started to increase to 40 a day by the end.

There is an I.C.R.C. record D-262-11 that internees #20161 at Frith Hill Frimley was released on 27 August 1919 - judging from the records of releases Frith Hill closed towards the end of September 1919. However Heinrich did not enjoy freedom for long - sometime afterwards he was admitted to the German Hospital Dalston where he died on the 10th October 1919 from pneumonia - as there was no inquest his grandson supposes that he had been in the hospital for some time.

Knockaloe remained open until the 10th October 1919 but the major clearances had been early in 1919 with many repatriation transfers to camps set up to handle the transfers to Germany including several large parties of several hundred up to March 1919 to Alexandra Palace with the final, much smaller, party to Alexandra Palace in May 1919 after which there appeared some small groups sent to Frimley and to Feltham. The identities of those transferred to Alexandra Palace are not given in any surviving document - my guess is that he was sent to Alexandra Palace and decanted from there to Frith Hill in June or early July. There were two large transfers to Alexandra Palace one of some 500 on 13th January 1919 and the second of over 1000 on the 22nd February 1919 - the majority of which internees were noted as repatriated. As the Alexandra Palace camp numbers of those repatriated are noted it is apparent that Henkel's camp number falls between these two groups - assuming that he was sent directly to Alexandra Palace then he must have been in one of two small groups, 5 were sent on 30th January and 3 on the 5th of February.

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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2020