They were transported southward.
“Hey, that’s the wrong way!” they said.
“No, you’re going south to help rebuild Italy,” was the reply.
He was sent to Ancona, then to Rimini, and finally to Taranto in southern Italy.
There, they were deloused by being heavily sprayed with DDT. At the time, people were not yet aware of how toxic this new “wonder chemical” was.
There were 50,000 prisoners of war in the camp, and they lived in large tents housing ten men each.
They were given all the water they could drink, but very little food. Their meals consisted mainly of soup—about half a mess tin full, with virtually no solid ingredients in it.
By the end of his captivity, he weighed only 90 pounds (45 kg).
They received one loaf of bread for every ten men, and dividing it fairly was no easy task.
The man who cut the bread would usually make sure to give himself a larger piece, while the remaining portions were not equal in size. This often led to arguments and resentment among the prisoners.
Eventually, Asger could no longer tolerate the situation and introduced a clever system. He divided the loaf into ten reasonably equal pieces. One of the prisoners stood with his back turned to the group. As each piece was pointed to, that prisoner would name the person who should receive it.
The bread was distributed much more fairly this way, but they were still hungry.