Etching plate : Lieutenant R W Lister, 2/1 Australian Ordnance Store Company

Lacquered iron plate, cut from a Canadian butter tin supplied in a Red Cross parcel, scratched with a needle to produce a small etching plate that produced a run of six etchings titled 'British Officer Prisoner-of-War Camp No.7B Eichstatt Bavaria, Winter 1943. The back of the plate bears part of the original painted label on the tin, in red, white and dark blue, including 'CANADA TORONTO' and a maple leaf symbol.

VX7502 Lieutenant Ronald Walter Lister served with 2/1 Australian Ordnance Store Company. Born in 1918, he had served with the militia before the Second World War, and was working as an etcher and lithographer for CHT Pty Ltd in Melbourne before he enlisted in the AIF, on 24 November 1939. He sailed with his unit for service in Palestine in 1940. In 1941 Lister took part in the Greece and Crete campaign and was captured by the Germans on Crete, on 1 June 1941. Flown by the Germans to Athens, and then transferred to Salonika, Lister was then sent to Oflag X/C at Lubeck on the Baltic Sea, arriving there on 29 July. On 9 October 1941 Lister was transferred to Oflag VIB at Dossel uber Warburg, and in summer 1942 to Oflag VIIB at Eichstatt, where he remained for the rest of the war. Eichstatt was a large camp which ran a number of education programs using material obtained through the British Red Cross and Swedish YMCA. This plate was made by flattening a Canadian butter 'tin' from a Red Cross parcel and using a needle to scratch through the protective lacquer on the iron to produce an image in reverse. During the war the tin normally used to coat iron food containers was in short supply and lacquer was used instead. An image from the plate was made by rubbing watercolour into it and lifting it off by laying damp paper over the drawing and rubbing it with the back of a spoon. Only six prints could be produced from a plate as rubbing it flattened the burr made by the engraving needle on the lacquer so that there was no recess left to hold the ink. In April 1945 Lister was briefly moved to Stalag VIIA at Moosburg before being liberated by American forces on 29 April. He was discharged in Australia on 24 April 1946.