Birtas
Audio dramatisation adapted from the memoirs of POW, Phylactis Aristokleous.
"I remember a man nicknamed "Birtas." He was wearing an overcoat, and as he left the canteen, I noticed black lice forming a line from the bottom of his coat to his shoulders, one behind the other, like ants or migratory birds in the sky. I immediately called out to him and advised him to take off his clothes and have a good bath without delay, as the lice had nearly sucked all his blood. But he shrugged indifferently and replied, “Well, let them eat whatever they find!”—referring, of course, to the lice.
I called over a German guard nearby who spoke English. I asked for boiling water from the kitchen so we could dunk Birtas's clothes in a barrel. The German ordered him to remove all his clothes. We soaked his clothes in boiling water. During this entire time, Birtas stood completely naked in the snow, exposed to the freezing cold. With his stammering voice, he shouted out, “You’re going to kill me, Sergeant Phylakti!”
At least we temporarily rid him of an entire army of lice that resembled an ant nest. "