News

The inventory work on another donation is drawing to an end. The donation which found its way into the Museum’s collection in October this year is the notebook of Father Richarda Shuttleworth Wingfield Digby – British Army chaplain detained in, among others, Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf.

The valuable donation was given over to our Museum by the former POW’s son, Peter Wingfield Digby, who had decided to do so upon the earlier kind relation with us and also having been satisfied with the manner in which another damaged, yet most interesting, artefact that had also belonged to his father, had been taken care of. That was a copy of The Holy Bible which came from the time of Father Digby’s captivity in Lamsdorf. Owing to its inclusion into our museal resources, it could undergo a thorough renovation and conservation.

The notebook which we have obtained is not less valuable. Its present state of preservation is not only better, but – what is more significant – makes a personal testimony of time, since the British chaplain, supposedly beginning with 1941, recorded in it a great number of his thoughts inspired by the books he had read. The notes were found by the former POW’s daughter in the family archive. They are in the form of an 83-page notebook filled with quotations rewritten from books and comments on them made by Father Digby. The notes expose his reflective nature as well as the influence of his prewar education – he had completed studies in economy and theology.

We are grateful for the donation!