Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Charles. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm Josh. There's Charles.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: This is off to a good start already, this is
Speaker 1: short stuff. Jerry's here too, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: Let's go all right, this is about the Pow Olympics.
Speaker 2: We're going to hop in the al wayback machine and
Speaker 2: go back to nineteen forty four and Voldenbruke in western Poland,
Speaker 2: where Polish military officers were being held captive as POWs
Speaker 2: by the Nazis. But the Nazis were like, hey, be
Speaker 2: glad you're here, because it's not so bad. We treat
Speaker 2: you guys pretty well. We adhere to the Geneva Convention
Speaker 2: for the most part. And if you'll notice, there are
Speaker 2: no death chambers and things like that here. You've got
Speaker 2: an orchestra, you're taking classes. Treat us well after the war.
Speaker 2: Because I think I see where this whole thing's ended.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you did you say that the POWs were
Speaker 1: all officers?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: Okay, so that that that was why this pow camp
Speaker 1: was called offlog two c Offlog is derived from a
Speaker 1: German word. I think it might be slang for an
Speaker 1: officer's prison camp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like the Great Escape. Okay, sure,
Speaker 2: remember they had it pretty easy in that camp.
Speaker 1: Right, So, yeah, I think that was there were a
Speaker 1: lot of political reasons why they were taking it easy
Speaker 1: on them and following the Geneva Convention. But doesn't it
Speaker 1: just feel dirty to give the Nazis credit for anything?
Speaker 2: No, for sure, but I think it was one of
Speaker 2: those cases where I wasn't really joking when I said
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, remember this after the war, because
Speaker 2: they were trying to set themselves up for being treated
Speaker 2: okay after the war, and also to draw comparisons to
Speaker 2: at the time Russian prison camps and saying like they're
Speaker 2: the they're the really bad ones. This one isn't so bad,
Speaker 2: specifically here in Poland.
Speaker 1: So part of that was allowing of an Olympic Games
Speaker 1: to be held at Waldenburg. It was a Pow Olympics
Speaker 1: that was organized and carried out in cooperation with the
Speaker 1: German captors that were supposed to be in London and
Speaker 1: then got canceled and then popped up again in the
Speaker 1: at the Waldenburg Pow camp.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. I doubt if the real Olympic Games people
Speaker 2: know about it, although you never know, you never know.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know about it so well.
Speaker 1: I know that I know that the Chinese held a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two POW Olympics at a camp in Korea,
Speaker 1: in North Korea with Korean War captives as a huge
Speaker 1: propaganda coup. Like they kept records, they followed the IOC
Speaker 1: instructions to a t, and they let the world know
Speaker 1: about it. So I wouldn't surprised that the Nazis told
Speaker 1: people that this was going on as a pr thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and since we're talking about other Pow Olympics, got
Speaker 2: it to talk about nineteen forty because they were supposed
Speaker 2: to be in Tokyo. World War II was just getting
Speaker 2: cranking up there, so they moved it to Helsinki, Finland,
Speaker 2: and then they canceled those altogether. And there was a
Speaker 2: German POW camp in Langfasa, Germany that had they called
Speaker 2: it the International Prisoner of War Games, but that one
Speaker 2: was a little bit different. That one was in secret.
Speaker 2: There would have been penalties by the German captors for
Speaker 2: holding that Olympics. So somehow they managed to pull off
Speaker 2: a secret Olympics nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the captors just thought they were watching
Speaker 1: a basketball game or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe, and that weird Olympic flag with the rings
Speaker 2: was I don't know, just for fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break, chuck.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: And job.
Speaker 2: All right. So geez, we've now covered very quickly two
Speaker 2: Olympic game POW Olympic games, but we're gonna go back
Speaker 2: to the one in nineteen forty four and voted in
Speaker 2: book because they, like you said, had the permission of
Speaker 2: the Nazis to do this, and it was It kind
Speaker 2: of became one of those stories of the war, kind
Speaker 2: of like the Christmas where the ceasefire happened on Christmas Eve. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they got together. It sort of has that air
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Man, that's just such an amazing story.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, they are probably the most famous long long
Speaker 1: Losser and Woldenburg are about the most famous of all
Speaker 1: the POW games, so we know the most about them.
Speaker 1: In Waldenburg's they had a bunch of different events, like
Speaker 1: they really kind of followed the Olympics at the time
Speaker 1: to a t. There was soccer aka football, handball, basketball,
Speaker 1: track and field, but there were some events that they're like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna draw the line at that because we don't
Speaker 1: trust you. Still, this is a pow camp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty funny. Of course, they were like, maybe
Speaker 2: nothing where you shoot an arrow, so archery was out.
Speaker 2: They said maybe nothing where you hold a sword, so
Speaker 2: fencing was out. And then they said, beer, wow, we're
Speaker 2: at it. Let's get rid of the javelin because I imagine
Speaker 2: that would not feel good in the chest. And it
Speaker 2: seems to me that practicing for pole vaulting, it's just
Speaker 2: another way of saying practicing for getting over that fence
Speaker 2: over there.
Speaker 1: Right, tough to slip it past them while you're having
Speaker 1: an Olympics. They also had to say no boxing, not
Speaker 1: because there was any they were worried about it were
Speaker 1: getting beaten up, I guessed by the boxers. They were
Speaker 1: worried about the boxers killing one another because they were
Speaker 1: again even though they were officers, these were held in
Speaker 1: pow camps, and so the boxers were essentially too frail
Speaker 1: to box. It was just too dangerous for the boxers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we can't not mention the great great World
Speaker 2: War two soccer film Victory with Sylvester Stallone and Michael
Speaker 2: Caine and.
Speaker 1: Pele Plee was in it.
Speaker 2: Plee was in it neat what year was this?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: This is in the eighties. But it told the story
Speaker 2: of a soccer match that was held between the Nazis
Speaker 2: and the POW's. But there was an escape plan at halftime.
Speaker 2: They were to bust out dig they had people digging
Speaker 2: in and then we're going to bust into the locker
Speaker 2: room and get them out. And I'm not gonna spoil it,
Speaker 2: but let's just say they are faced at halftime with
Speaker 2: the choice do we escape during this game or do
Speaker 2: we go back on that field and try and beat
Speaker 2: the Nazis at soccer?
Speaker 1: Uh? You escape.
Speaker 2: It's unequivocal, great, great movie, one of the great sports movies.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was remade as The Longest Yard.
Speaker 1: Isn't that kind of like the plot of that too?
Speaker 2: Hmmm? I mean no, it wasn't like a remake. But
Speaker 2: The Longest Yard was That was the Burt Reynolds football
Speaker 2: movie about prison Adam game. Yeah, well, then remade again
Speaker 2: by Adam Sandler. But I don't think there was an
Speaker 2: escape thing in the Longest Yard? Was there?
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. That's why I said that. I
Speaker 1: thought there might be, But maybe I just put that
Speaker 1: in there to entertain myself because I was bored.
Speaker 2: It's been it's been. Thanks a lot. Appreciate that.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I mean with the movie, not with
Speaker 1: your anecdote.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, no, I don't think there was, unless I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: I think Along as Yar was just about a football game.
Speaker 2: But I may be wrong. It's been a minute.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, this conversations boring. Let's move on.
Speaker 2: Still unplays a goalkeeper?
Speaker 1: Does he really?
Speaker 2: True? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Does he take one in the face?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, they had to teach him. He wasn't very
Speaker 2: good at it, but they needed him on the escape team.
Speaker 2: So he was not the most gifted goalkeeper. But they
Speaker 2: had Pele, and they had all these other English football
Speaker 2: stars from the time that I didn't know about. But
Speaker 2: my friend Justin's like, oh that was Bobby's something something
Speaker 2: and whatever.
Speaker 1: I hadn't realized Pele had been a pow.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we just stop.
Speaker 1: Well, wait a minute, wait a minut. Before we stop,
Speaker 1: we have to say that. In addition to those like basketball, handball,
Speaker 1: track and field, that kind of stuff, they actually held
Speaker 1: cultural events as part of the Olympic competitions at Woldenburg
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty four for like sculpture and painting and chess,
Speaker 1: and you would just normally think like, okay, they were
Speaker 1: just trying to round some stuff out. Maybe they were
Speaker 1: trying to replace the javelin event with something else, so
Speaker 1: they came up in chess. No. From nineteen twelve to
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, the Olympics awarded one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: one medals to original works in the fine arts. Like
Speaker 1: you you could go see a sculpture exhibit and a
Speaker 1: long jump competition in the same place, maybe even during
Speaker 1: that fifty years or forty years, you can see a
Speaker 1: sculpture battle, a sculpt off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had no idea, So that was sort of
Speaker 2: on My big one takeaway out of this whole thing
Speaker 2: was that they actually, for four decades gave out Olympic
Speaker 2: medals in the arts. Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 1: It is very cool. Its a surprising little factoid that
Speaker 1: I had not expected to learn from this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That, and that Pele was a POW in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, So hats off to everybody who participated in Olympics
Speaker 1: and Pow camps. It is kind of the triumph of
Speaker 1: the human spirit. You know what, I mean totally like
Speaker 1: the purest form of Olympic competition. That's right, And I
Speaker 1: guess since Chuck is agreeing with me, then we should
Speaker 1: just go ahead and say this short stuff is out.
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.