“Travels to a Different Time” :July 26, 1971: Rab, Yugoslavia: The Man with The Revolting Pig Barfy Cough, A Lousy Filthy Rotten Beach and Up Close and Personal with a Former German POW

I was woken out of a good sleep by Mom rattling the key in the door and a revolting pig barfy cough from someone across the hall. We caught a 10 a.m. bus to Barbot and a new beach which was a filthy rotten and disgusting beach. We stayed 30 minutes without entering the less than clean water. We had a 3 hour wait for the return bus so we hitched back to town and was picked up by a German man. He was a former WW2 POW that was in a prison camp in Florida for two years. Wow meeting up with homosexuals, seeing prostitutes, an interpreter for the Canadians when they liberated Holland and now a German POW face to face! I don’t know how to feel about this for now. My uncle was a pilot and was shot down by a German pilot, my Dad lost many friends in the Battle of Britain and when younger I played war and Germans were my big enemy. The German said he was glad he was captured as so many of his friends were killed near the end of the war by Russians. He said he was not a Nazi but as a young man he had no choice but to join the army. He gave us a lift back into town and we went to the town beach at 3:30. We were having dinner for 18 (just over a dollar) dinars which was a three course meal of mediocre quality. We watched a ship come in and off to bed. I haven’t made up my mind about that German. I wonder if Fritz was in the German army? How would my late father feel about that?