Week 2 – #52Ancestors: “A Record That Adds Color”
On April 29, 1945, Lieutenant Stephen (“Steve”) Marcisak stood in the yard of Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany, and watched a Sherman tank from the U.S. 14th Armored Division roll through the gates. In the small POW journal he’d been keeping since January, he wrote in capital letters: “ALLIES TAKE OVER – FREE – STALAG VIIA.”1
That POW journal (actually two versions of the same record, each with slightly different details) adds color to Stephen’s prisoner of war experience in ways that official military records never could. While military documents tell us he was captured at Anzio, Italy on February 18, 1944, and eventually liberated on April 29, 1945, his POW journal reveals what those 435 days actually meant: the frozen march through Poland, the trades made to survive starvation, the exhaustive lists of food he dreamed about, and the family connections that kept him human when everything else tried to strip that away.
As Steve’s great-niece, I’ve spent years researching his World War II service, combining family documents with archival records to understand his complete story.
Two Journals, One Story
I actually possess two versions of Steve’s POW journal. The first is a photocopy of the original. During our months of correspondence, Stephen’s adopted daughter generously offered to send me photocopies of each page. What an incredible gift. The second appears to be a fair copy written after the fact. The consistent ink and similar handwriting throughout suggest Stephen transcribed the entire POW journal at once, perhaps to preserve it or create a more permanent record.
That he felt compelled to rewrite this prisoner of war diary tells its own story. These weren’t just notes. This was his survival documented, and it mattered enough to preserve carefully.
The March: 565 Kilometers in Bitter Cold
The POW journal opens on Sunday, January 21, 1945. This was the day German guards marched Steve and 1,471 other American officers out of Oflag 64.4 Stephen recorded leaving “Oflag 64, Altburgund.” This was the German-imposed name for Szubin, Poland, reflecting the Nazi occupation’s practice of renaming Polish towns to “Germanize” them. Soviet troops were advancing from the east, and the Germans weren’t about to let their American prisoners be liberated by the Russians.
Steve meticulously recorded the daily distances: 121 kilometers by January 29, 345 kilometers (215 5/8 miles) by February 12. They walked through snow and bitter cold for almost two months. He noted each stopping point, including Stalag II B, which he called the “first warm place to sleep” since leaving Oflag 64.
Then came the boxcars. Thirty-six men and four guards crammed into a single car, barely able to move, making the agonizing journey to Hammelburg. Steve arrived at Oflag XIII-B on March 8, 1945.
The journal entries from late April capture the chaos and rising hope as Allied forces closed in. He noted U.S. bombers overhead, “P51s overhead ‘keeping watch.’” Liberation was coming.
When it finally arrived at Stalag VII-A on April 27-29, Stephen recorded every moment: the takeover, the Sherman tank rolling in, the beginning of freedom. His final pages track his journey to “Camp Lucky Strike” in France for recovery, then his voyage home across the Atlantic on the transport ship John Erickson. On May 29, 1945, he arrived in port and wrote: “THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE.”
The History: Trading a Watch for Survival
The second section of Steve’s POW journal provides what he called a “Chronological History” and “General” account of his captivity, starting with his capture at Anzio. This is where the prisoner of war diary adds the most vivid color to his experience.
The early days were brutal: marching all day, sleeping in barns, surviving on rations so meager that three loaves of bread had to feed 83 men. Stephen noted that the German guards were so full of propaganda they genuinely believed Germany would win the war.
At camps like Latterina, conditions were appalling. Barracks crawled with lice, bedbugs, and fleas. Medical supplies didn’t exist—nothing for malaria, nothing for infected blisters from the constant marching. Men were on their own.
To survive, prisoners traded anything of value. Steve recorded trading an Italian watch for 3 1/2 loaves of bread and a handful of tobacco. When you’re starving, a watch means nothing. Bread means everything.
The Food Lists: A Mental Escape from Starvation
Perhaps the most poignant section of the POW journal comes after the pay records: page after page of exhaustive lists detailing everything he intended to eat after liberation.
These weren’t idle daydreams. They were survival tools, mental escapes from the gnawing reality of starvation:
- 31 varieties of pie
- Over 50 types of sandwiches (from hot pastrami to “cannibal”)
- Specific NYC restaurants with their street addresses and cross-sections
- “Ex-Kriegie” menus (Kriegie being POW slang from the German “Kriegsgefangener”)
- Comprehensive categorized lists: gravies, sauces, cheeses, desserts, vegetables
- A section for game: squirrel, bear, coon
- Fish: sturgeon, frog legs, abalone
- A final breakfast list: juices, fruits with cream or whipped cream, cereals like Farina, Hominy, and Grits
Reading these lists now, knowing Stephen was recording them while genuinely starving, transforms them from curiosities into something profound. Every sandwich variety, every restaurant address, every type of pie represented hope. They were proof that a world beyond barbed wire and hunger still existed. They were his way of keeping that world alive in his mind when everything around him denied its existence.
Every Day is Mother’s Day
Throughout the POW journal, Stephen’s sense of family resonates—just as it did in his letters home that I’ve written about before (See: Three Men at War, One Family Keeping Hope Alive” and “Remembering the Forgotten Heroes: Paul and Stephen Marcisak“). But the entries after liberation are especially moving.
He mentions that two gifts from Mary, his girlfriend, were lost and are irreplaceable. This small detail shows what mattered to him even amid the chaos of liberation and recovery.
On Mother’s Day 1945, newly freed and recovering at Camp Lucky Strike, Stephen attended mass. In his journal he wrote: “I haven’t forgotten you mom or dad, or any of you at home. Every day is mother’s & father’s day for me.”
This is the man behind the military records, behind the POW number, behind the statistics. A son who thought of his parents every single day through 435 days of captivity. A young man in love who treasured gifts from his girlfriend. A person who kept himself human by remembering the people who loved him and the world he would return to.
The Brotherhood of Survival
The final pages of Stephen’s POW journal serve as a directory. Carefully recorded names, ranks, and serial numbers of 18 fellow officers, along with home addresses for men like Andrew H. Paulishen from Ohio and Duane Smith from Iowa.
These weren’t just administrative notes. This was Stephen ensuring the bonds forged in captivity would survive liberation. His “Hammelburg boys” had walked those 345 kilometers together, had shared those impossible rations, had survived the boxcars and the liberation and the long journey home. He wasn’t going to lose them just because the war was over.
What This Journal Adds
Military records tell us Stephen Marcisak was captured on February 18, 1944, and liberated on April 29, 1945. His POW journal tells us what those 435 days actually were:
- A forced march of 345 kilometers through Polish winter
- Thirty-six men crammed in a boxcar meant for eight
- Trading a watch for bread because survival trumped sentiment
- Page after page of food lists that kept hope alive
- A son who thought of his parents every single day
- A young man who mourned irreplaceable gifts from his girlfriend
- A soldier who carefully recorded his fellow prisoners’ addresses because those friendships mattered
Official records capture facts. Personal journals capture humanity. Stephen’s POW journal adds color not just to his story, but to our understanding of what POW survival actually meant: the physical endurance, the psychological strategies, the unbreakable connections to family and fellow prisoners that made returning home possible.
When Stephen wrote “THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE” on May 29, 1945, he wasn’t just recording his arrival in port. He was acknowledging that he’d made it—body, mind, and spirit—back to the world those food lists and family thoughts had kept alive for him through the darkest days.
This prisoner of war diary is why I’ll never take “captured” and “liberated” as simple dates on a timeline again. Those dates held 345 kilometers of frozen marching, 31 varieties of imagined pie, and a son’s promise that he hadn’t forgotten anyone at home.
That’s what a record that adds color looks like.
YOUR TURN: Do you have journals, diaries, or personal accounts in your family collection? What details have they revealed that official records never could? Share your stories in the comments!
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Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Three Men at War, One Family Keeping Hope Alive
- Remembering the Forgotten Heroes: Paul and Stephen Marcisak
- The 1973 NPRC Fire: When Flames Destroyed Military History
- Stephen Marcisak, prisoner of war journal, Poland and Germany, 21 January 1945 to 29 May 1945; two versions: (1) photocopy of original journal received from Stephen Marcisak’s adopted daughter, 2025, and (2) fair copy transcription in same hand; Marcisak Family Papers, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025. ↩︎
- Stephen Marcisak, prisoner of war journal, Poland and Germany, 29 April 1945 entry, photocopy of original journal received from Stephen Marcisak’s adopted daughter, 2025; Marcisak Family Papers, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025. ↩︎
- Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, “Stephen Marcisak POW March Route,” infographic generated with NotebookLM artificial intelligence tool based on Stephen Marcisak prisoner of war journal, 11 January 2026; digital file, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2026. ↩︎
- “History,” Oflag 64 (https://oflag64.us/history.html: accessed 11 January 2026). ↩︎
- Stephen Marcisak, prisoner of war journal, Poland and Germany, 29 May 1945; photocopy of original journal received from Stephen Marcisak’s adopted daughter, 2025; Marcisak Family Papers, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025. ↩︎
- Stephen Marcisak, prisoner of war journal, Poland and Germany; photocopy of original journal received from Stephen Marcisak’s adopted daughter, 2025; Marcisak Family Papers, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025. ↩︎
- Stephen Marcisak, prisoner of war journal, Poland and Germany, Mother’s Day 1945 entry, photocopy of original journal received from Stephen Marcisak’s adopted daughter, 2025; Marcisak Family Papers, privately held by Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025. ↩︎
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