Later, together with other prisoners under the guard of Polish soldiers serving in the British Army, he was transported north through Luxembourg and Belgium to the Netherlands.
In Luxembourg, the local SS volunteers were taken off the train and immediately beaten with clubs at the railway station.
In Belgium, the Belgian volunteers were then taken off. They too were met by their fellow countrymen, who immediately began beating them.
In the Netherlands, they were taken to some large factory halls belonging to Philips. There, the guards amused themselves by accelerating and braking the trucks so that the prisoners would slide back and forth on the truck beds.
There was also amusement in tripping blind prisoners, causing them to fall to the ground.
Visits to the toilet had to be carried out simultaneously and within a two-minute time limit. Naturally, this resulted in many prisoners developing serious bowel and digestive problems.
One of the first nights, they were awakened and, at gunpoint, forced to hand over all rings, wristwatches, and other personal valuables.
Even though they had no watches, any form of leaving the barracks after 6:00 p.m. was forbidden. If they went outside anyway, they risked being fired upon.
If they tried to quench their thirst at the water taps, the taps could be electrified.
From the Philips factory, they were transferred to a monastery.
At the monastery, Asger took part in an orchestra (which shows that knowing how to play an instrument can sometimes be useful), but this came to an abrupt end in the following way.
Smoking was forbidden, but the craving for tobacco was strong, and every opportunity to smoke was seized. They had managed to get hold of a cigarette butt and had succeeded in lighting it. This required some ingenuity—for example, using sparks from a wire in an electrical socket.
Unfortunately, the Wachtmeister (sergeant) arrived and caught Asger red-handed.
“You could at least have let me finish smoking it!” Asger said as he was being led away.
For this offense, he was sentenced to three days in “the cage.”
There was a row of cages with iron bars, much like those in a zoo. The cage had a roof, but otherwise it was completely exposed.
It was autumn, and he was given a mattress and a blanket to use inside the cage.