In
addition to the very active Merchant Navy Theatre, there was a camp
cinema known, to all and sundry, as the "Nimmodeon." A name
derived from a combination of the popular "Odeon" chain of
cinemas and Robert Nimmo, the enthusiastic and hard-working and enthusiastic
manager. Started up in the officers' dining hall, it was not until October
1943, that it took over the galley barrack vacated by the Indian seamen
transferred to the Inder Lager.
Nimmo, Purvis, Middleton and Campbell
worked hard to create a small but compact cinema in part of the vacated
barrack. The projection booth, made out of Red Cross plywood lined with
cardboard for sound insulation, held a Zeiss-Ikon Kinobox, rented from
the Germans. Dimming house light and six tiers of benches, two rows
per step, provided seating for ninety cinema-goers. A further forty-two
seats were placed around the sides of the room making it possible for
audiences of nearly 150 to attend the three daily performances that
were held during each film's run.59 Films were provided once a month
on average, rented from the German authorities for between four and
six hundred Marks, including the hire of the projector. Naturally, most
had German sound tracks. Of the twenty-four "talking pictures"
screened, only four had English titles. Nevertheless the cinema provided
welcome amusement and, from the newsreels, the PoWs gained some idea
of how the German population believed the war to be progressing.
Originally a high quality beaded glass
screen was used, but the Germans evidently thought this too good for
Gefangeners use and confiscated it. The homemade screen which replaced
it was made of canvas, painted white, and at the projection distance
gave an image some six foot by eight. A dyed and painted curtain, spot
lights, windows, blacked out with Red Cross cardboard and painted with
various shipping companies badges and a dark blue ceiling completed
the illusion of an authentic picture palace.
In most cases the films came from the
guards lager where they were first shown to the camp guards and local
civilians. Tickets for performances in the Nimmodeon were fifty pfennigs
each and were distributed around the various barracks in order to spread
the audiences as widely as possible.
Between October 1943 and February 1945
a total of twenty-four films with sound-track were shown in the Nimmodeon
at a rate of one or two each month. Naturally almost all were in German
but four, including 'Bringing up Baby' and 'Hit the Ice', were English.
Attendances varied but all the films commanded audiences of over 1,000
and some, like 'A Summertime Adventure', shown in December 1943, were
seen by as many as 3,900.
In
the weeks when there were no films, three gramophone concerts a week
were held in the cinema and by Autumn 1944 some 50 performances had
taken place.
