Fort XV Thorn [Torun, Poland]

Depicts a fence with open gates behind which is an entry to FORT XV Torun, Poland. Camp Stalag XXA was a series of POW camps in forts in Thorn (now Torun) in Poland during the Second World War. At its peak, the POW camps at Torun contained as many as 20,000 men and the main camp was located in a complex of fifteen forts that surrounded the whole of the city. The forts had been built at the end of 19th century to defend the western border of Kingdom of Prussia. The camps operated between 1939-1945. Guy Grey-Smith (1916-1981) was a painter, printmaker and ceramicist. In late 1936 he joined the RAAF and was seconded to the RAF for 5 years, arriving in Britain shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In England he became a member of the No. 139 (B flight) Squadron at an aerodrome in Wyton, Huntingdon. On 4 September 1939 No. 139 Squadron led the first air raid of the war against German shipping near Wilhelmshaven. In May 1940 he was involved in a bombing raid over the Netherlands and a shell exploded in the cockpit of his plane, causing Grey-Smith to bail out at 600 feet. He landed dazed and bleeding heavily, with a broken leg and jaw at the German, Belgian and Dutch borders. He was left for 5 hours unattended before being picked up and taken to a German Casualty Clearing station. Guy Grey-Smith was imprisoned in a number of POW camps in Germany and Poland between September 1939- May 1944. Due to enforced periods of idleness at the camps he gbegan embarking on an artistic career, receiving artbooks and materials in the various camps sent by his British wife, Helen. In October 1943, Grey-Smith's ill health made him eligible under the Geneva Convention to be moved out of the camp and he was repatriated to Australia 4 years after he was shot down. The works produced by Grey-Smith during his internment in various POW camps present vivid insights into the locations and day-to-day activities at the camps by one of West Australia's most well regarded Modernist artists.