Stalag 383 was somewhat unique as a Second World War prisoner of war camp. Located in a high valley surrounded by dense woodland and hills in Hofenfels, Bavaria, it began life in 1938 as a training ground for the German Army. At the outbreak of war it was commandeered by the German authorities for use as a prisoner of war camp for Allied non-commissioned officers, and given the name Oflag lllC. It was renamed Stalag 383 in November 1942. For most of its existence it comprised of some 400 huts, 30 feet long and 14 feet wide, with each typically being home to 14 men. Many of the British service men who found themselves incarcerated at the camp had been captured during the evacuations at Dunkirk, or when the Greek island of Crete fell to the Germans on 1 June 1941. Stalag 383 had somewhat of a holiday camp feel to it for many who found themselves prisoners there. There were numerous clubs formed by different regiments, or men from the same town or county. These clubs catered for interests such as education, sports, theatrical productions and debates, to name but a few. This book examines life in the camp, the escapes that were undertaken from there, and includes a selection of never before published photographs of the camp and the men who lived there, many for more than five years.

The bestselling story of Britain's most courageous and most famous flyer, the Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader. In 1931, at the age of 21, Douglas Bader was the golden boy of the RAF. Excelling in everything he did he represented the Royal Air Force in aerobatics displays, played rugby for Harlequins, and was tipped to be the next England fly half. But one afternoon in December all his ambitions came to an abrupt end when he crashed his plane doing a particularly difficult and illegal aerobatic trick. His injuries were so bad that surgeons were forced to amputate both his legs to save his life. Douglas Bader did not fly again until the outbreak of the Second World War, when his undoubted skill in the air was enough to convince a desperate air force to give him his own squadron. The rest of his story is the stuff of legend. Flying Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain he led his squadron to kill after kill, keeping them all going with his unstoppable banter. Shot down in occupied France, his German captors had to confiscate his tin legs in order to stop him trying to escape. Bader faced it all, disability, leadership and capture, with the same charm, charisma and determination that was an inspiration to all around him.

Despite their insistence that the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops was the condition for the release of prisoners of war, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam took little action to account for American POWs at the end of the Vietnam War. Almost two decades would pass following the end of the war before significant internal political changes, shifting regional alignments, changing Western interests, Sino-Soviet rapprochement, a nonmilitary settlement of the Cambodian conflict, and the collapse of the Soviet Union would bring Hanoi to the point of recognizing the importance of mending its relationship with the West. From the Paris peace talks to the U.S. government's decision in 1994 to lift the trade embargo against Vietnam, Hanoi's policy on American MIAs and POWs is examined, with particular focus on the influence of individual decision-makers on the process and the ways the Vietnamese leadership arrived at their negotiating strategies.

The bestselling historian with the incredible true story of WW2's most infamous Nazi prison

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. But that tale contains only part of the truth.

The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful -- and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. Deeply researched and full of incredible human stories, this is the definitive book on Colditz.

A constant yet oftentimes concealed practice in war has been the use of informers and collaborators by parties to an armed conflict. Despite the prevalence of such activity, and the serious and at times fatal consequences that befall those who collaborate with an enemy, international law applicable in times of armed conflict does not squarely address the phenomenon. The recruitment, use and treatment of informers and other collaborators is addressed only partially and at times indirectly by international humanitarian law. In this book, Shane Darcy examines the development and application of the relevant rules and principles of the laws of armed conflict in relation to collaboration. With a primary focus on international humanitarian law as may be applicable to various forms of collaboration, the book also offers an assessment of the relevance of international human rights law.

The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia's World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide). During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout. This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia's leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred - and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.

Whilst many books have been published about war, the role of the prisoner of war has been largely ignored or paid scant attention. This book, along with the author's other title - A History of Napoleonic and American Prisoners of War 1756-1816: Hulk, Depot and Parole - aims to correct this imbalance, and is the result of his quest over thirty years into this almost-forgotten field of history. Illustrated here is an extensive selection of items from museums around the world and the author's own collection - one of the largest private collections of prisoner of war artefacts in existence - revealing the incredible skills of these imprisoned craftsmen. The items - delicate, intricate and highly detailed - include boxes, toys and automata made from bone, straw or paper, as well as paintings by artists whose work is now much in demand. The creation of these pieces seems even more remarkable when the conditions under which they would have been made and the extreme limitations the prisoners would have e

"I never look at my case as just my own, or just as a Japanese- American case. It is an American case, with principles that affect the fundamental human rights of all Americans." -Gordon K. Hirabayashi

In 1942, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi defied the curfew and mass removal of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, and was subsequently convicted and imprisoned as a result. In "A Principled Stand," Gordon's brother James and nephew Lane have brought together his prison diaries and voluminous wartime correspondence to tell the story of "Hirabayashi v. United States," the Supreme Court case that in 1943 upheld and on appeal in 1987 vacated his conviction. For the first time, the events of the case are told in Gordon's own words. The result is a compelling and intimate story that reveals what motivated him, how he endured, and how his ideals deepened as he fought discrimination and defended his beliefs.

"A Principled Stand" adds valuable context to the body of work by legal scholars and historians on the seminal Hirabayashi case. This engaging memoir combines Gordon's accounts with family photographs and archival documents as it takes readers through the series of imprisonments and court battles Gordon endured. Details such as Gordon's profound religious faith, his roots in student movements of the day, his encounters with inmates in jail, and his daily experiences during imprisonment give texture to his storied life.

Gordon K. Hirabayashi (1918-2012) was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2012. He was professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton. James A. Hirabayashi (1926-2012) was professor emeritus of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi is professor of Asian American Studies and the George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community at UCLA.

""A Principled Stand" makes an important contribution to understanding both Gordon Hirabayashi's life and the horrible episode in this country's history that was the internment." -Lorraiane Bannai, Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, Seattle University School of Law

John Geoffrey Lee (always known as Geoff) joined the RAF on his 20th birthday in June 1941. He left Liverpool on a troop ship in December 1941, with no idea where he was going. He eventually arrived in Java, where he was captured by the Japanese, along with many others. During his time in captivity, he survived several camps in Java, Ambon and Singapore and three hell ship journeys. After being washed ashore in Sumatra, (as a ferry he was being transported on blew up), he was then recaptured and suffered sheer hell as a slave on the Sumatra Railway. Enduring bouts of malaria, beri beri, tropical ulcers and a starvation diet was bad enough, but this was exacerbated by the searing heat and extreme cruelty meted out to the prisoners by the Japanese and Korean guards. Geoff miraculously survived, weighing just 6 stone when he arrived back in Liverpool in December 1945. After his release he found he had difficulty in convincing people where he had been as no one had heard of the Sumatra Railway , only the other one, thousands of miles away in Burma. Letters to newspapers were returned as Just another Burma Railway story'. The Ministry of Defence, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and The Imperial War Museum had no records of POW's building a railway in Sumatra. So began Geoff's journey, his aim to prove to the establishment what he already knew to be true. This is Geoff's story of his captivity, release, and subsequent efforts in achieving his aim.

Among the many German immigrants to the United States over the years, one group is unusual: former prisoners of war who had spent between one and three years on American soil and who returned voluntarily as immigrants after the war. Drawing on archival sources and in-depth interviews with 35 former prisoners who immigrated, the book outlines the conditions and circumstances that defined their unusual experiences and traces their journeys from captive enemies to American citizens. Although the respondents came from different backgrounds, and arrived on America at different times between 1943 and 1945, their experiences as prisoners of war not only left an indelible impression on their minds, it also provided them with opportunities and resources that helped them leave Germany behind and return to the place ""where we had the good life.

The gripping stories of RAF escapes and evasions as detailed in Escape and Liberation, 1940-45 illustrate some of the difficulties and problems facing the prisoners of war. In the first chapter, an attempt was made to compare the conditions and problems experienced by prisoners in the 1940 war with those met by prisoners in the First World War. With the exception of Von Werra's adventure, these stories were told to the author by the men themselves and prior to this book no other record existed of their experiences. Included are descriptions of the escapes of F./Lt. H. N. Fowler, Captain A. D. Taylor, Private Gordon Instone, Wing-Commander Basil Embry, F./Lt. W. P. F. Treacy and Pilot Officer B. J. A. Rennie. The second part of the book looks at 'The Liberation of Westertimke and Barth', 'Neu Brandenburg' and 'Neu Brandenburg Re-visited'. Escape and Liberation, 1940-45 chronicles these brave men who attempted the 'Home Run', the escape from German prisoner of war camps. The author, Alfred John Evans, fled from a German camp in the First World War after being shot down over the trenches. In turn, Evans inspired many prisoners, and he, in turn, took up his pen to narrate many of the famous escapes of the Second World War, including prisoners from the notorious Colditz Castle. Escape was the first problem, the second was to succeed in evasion.

The harrowing, and inspiring, story of the capture of one of Britain's top SOE agents in World War Two, his refusal to crack under the most horrific torture, and his final imprisonment in a concentration camp. 'The White Rabbit' was the code name of Wing Commander F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas when he parachuted into France in 1942 as a member of the Special Operations Executive with the Resistance. For the next eighteen months he was responsible for organising all the separate factions of the French Resistance into one combined 'secret army'. On three separate missions into occupied France he met with the heads of Resistance movements all over the country, and he spoke personally with Winston Churchill in order to ensure they were properly supplied. His capture by the Gestapo in March 1944 was therefore a terrible blow for the Resistance movement. For months he was submitted to the most horrific torture in an attempt to get him to spill his unparalleled knowledge of the Resistance, but he refused to crack. Finally he was sentenced to death, and sent to Buchenwald, one of the most infamous German concentration camps. The story of his endurance, and survival, is an inspiring study in the triumph of the human spirit over the most terrible adversity.

With expert scholars and great sensitivity, Out of Line, Out of Place illuminates and analyzes how the proliferation of internment camps emerged as a biopolitical tool of governance. Although the internment camp developed as a technology of containment, control, and punishment in the latter part of the nineteenth century mainly in colonial settings, it became universal and global during the Great War. Mass internment has long been recognized as a defining experience of World War II, but it was a fundamental experience of World War I as well. More than eight million soldiers became prisoners of war, more than a million civilians became internees, and several millions more were displaced from their homes, with many placed in securitized refugee camps. For the first time, Out of Line, Out of Place brings these different camps together in conversation. Rotem Kowner and Iris Rachamimov emphasize that although there were differences among camps and varied logic of internment in individual countries, there were also striking similarities in how camps operated during the Great War.

Left for Dead at Nijmegen recalls the larger-than-life experiences of an American paratrooper, Gene Metcalfe, who served in the 82nd Airborne during WWII. From his recruitment into the military at Camp Grant to his training with the 501st Paratroop Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa, it wasn't until D-Day itself that he first arrived in England to join the 508th PIR. Nannini records Gene's memories of being dropped during Operation Market Garden in Nijmegen, Holland. Gene was listed as KIA and left for dead by his patrol, who presumed the worst when they saw his injuries from a shell explosion. In the climax of the story, Gene is captured by German SS soldiers and, with absolutely no protection, found himself standing before a senior officer, whom Gene recognized as Heinrich Himmler himself, behind enemy lines in a 16th century castle. Gene's subsequent interrogation is fully recounted, from the questioning of his mission to the bizarre appearance of sausages, mustard, marmalade and bread for his "dinner." This would be his last proper meal for eight months. The rest of his story is equally gripping, as he became a POW held outside Munich, being moved between various camps ridden with disease and a severely undernourished population. Eventually, after making an escape attempt and being captured within sight of the snow-capped Swiss mountains, his camp was liberated by American troops in April 1945. Gene's story is both remarkable for his highly unusual encounter, and his subsequent experiences.

On a freezing winter's night, a few hours before dawn on May 12, 1969, South African security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, activist and wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, and arrested her in the presence of her two young daughters, then aged nine and ten. Rounded up in a group of other antiapartheid activists under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, designed for the security police to hold and interrogate people for as long as they wanted, she was taken away. She had no idea where they were taking her or what would happen to her children. For Winnie Mandela, this was the start of 491 days of detention and two trials. Forty-one years after Winnie Mandela's release on September 14, 1970, Greta Soggot, the widow of one of the defense attorneys from the 1969?-70 trials, handed her a stack of papers that included a journal and notes she had written while in detention, most of the time in solitary confinement. Their reappearance brought back to Winnie vivid and horrifying memories and uncovered for the rest of us a unique and personal slice of South Africa's history. 491 Days: Prisoner number 1323/69 shares with the world Winnie Mandela's moving and compelling journal along with some of the letters written between several affected parties at the time, including Winnie and Nelson Mandela, himself then a prisoner on Robben Island for nearly seven years. Readers will gain insight into the brutality she experienced and her depths of despair, as well as her resilience and defiance under extreme pressure. This young wife and mother emerged after 491 days in detention unbowed and determined to continue the struggle for freedom.

Since 2002, the United States has operated military detention facilities at its Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold individuals detained during overseas counter-terrorism operations. In 2009, the President directed the closure of these facilities within one year. Since then, a number of statues have prohibited the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States. This book describes the current Guantanamo Bay detention facilities and infrastructure; examines the DoD corrections facilities and factors to be considered if these facilities were used to hold the detainees; and discusses other security and legal considerations.

In Munich in 1920, just after the end of the First World War, German officers who had been prisoners of war in England published a book they had written and smuggled back to Germany. Through vivid text and illustrations they describe in detail their experience of life in captivity in a camp at Skipton in Yorkshire. Their work, now translated into English for the first time, gives us a unique insight into their feelings about the war, their captors and their longing to go home. In their own words they record the conditions, the daily routines, the food, their relationship with the prison authorities, their activities and entertainments, and their thoughts of their homeland. The challenges and privations they faced are part of their story, as is the community they created within the confines of the camp. The whole gamut of their existence is portrayed here, in particular through their drawings and cartoons which are reproduced alongside the translation. German Prisoners of the Great War offers us a direct inside of view a hitherto neglected aspect of the wartime experience a century ago.

The inside story of Israel's secret negotiations to bring home their soldiers taken hostage by terrorist groups. Suppose one day, your son or husband, while serving in the military or working as a journalist, is taken hostage by a terrorist group-and you have no idea whether your loved one is dead or alive or how to even make contact with the insurgents holding him. It's a nightmare scenario that has sadly taken place dozens of times in the past twenty years in the Middle East. Here in the U.S., the government does not always get involved. Instead, it will engage the services of a neutral country to negotiate with the terrorists. Unfortunately, many times the terrorists insist on never-ending demands in order to torment the family of the hostage. Unlike Israel, we've never had a central address for these types of scenarios. But maybe after reading this book, it's an idea we could, and should, consider. Ory Slonim, the international "door knocker" was an invention of necessity by the Israeli government. There were many good and brave human beings involved in this matter. Here for the first time is the story of the one man in Israel who, for more than two decades, was known as the "door knocker." He had been a private Israeli lawyer when he was asked to undertake, on behalf of the Israeli government, secret negotiations to find out the whereabouts of Israeli soldiers who were taken hostage by terrorist groups. His ultimate mission was to bring them home, dead or alive. In his capacity as negotiator, his story will take into you into the worlds of the furtive Mossad, the twisted minds of terrorists, the forever traumatized lives of the parents whose children never came home from battle, and into Ory's own resilient, compassionate, and amazingly resolute negotiations when ordinary people would have easily broken down.

An anthology of illustrated narratives about the prison and the lives it changed forever   In January 2002, the United States sent a group of Muslim men they suspected of terrorism to a prison in Guantánamo Bay. They were the first of roughly 780 prisoners who would be held there—and 40 inmates still remain. Eighteen years later, very few of them have been ever charged with a crime. In Guantánamo Voices, journalist Sarah Mirk and her team of diverse, talented graphic novel artists tell the stories of ten people whose lives have been shaped and affected by the prison, including former prisoners, lawyers, social workers, and service members. This collection of illustrated interviews explores the history of Guantánamo and the world post-9/11, presenting this complicated partisan issue through a new lens.

This book explores the history of Dartmoor War Prison (1805-16). This is not the well-known Victorian convict prison, but a less familiar penal institution, conceived and built nearly half a century earlier in the midst of the long-running wars against France, and destined, not for criminals, but for French and later American prisoners of war. During a period of six and a half years, more than 20,000 captives passed through its gates. Drawing on contemporary official records from Britain, France and the USA, and a wealth of prisoners' letters, diaries and memoirs (many of them studied here in detail for the first time), this book examines how Dartmoor War Prison was conceived and designed; how it was administered both from London and on the ground; how the fate of its prisoners intertwined with the military and diplomatic history of the period; and finally how those prisoners interacted with each other, with their captors, and with the wider community. The history of the prison on the moor is one marked by high hopes and noble intentions, but also of neglect, hardship, disease and death

Much of what has been written about the treatment of prisoners of war held by the British suggest that they have often been treated in a more caring and compassionate way than the prisoners of other countries. During the First World War, Germans held in Britain were treated leniently while there were claims of British prisoners being mistreated in Germany. Was the British sense of fair play present in the prison camps and did this sense of respect include the press and public who often called for harsher treatment of Germans in captivity? Were those seen as enemy aliens living in Britain given similar fair treatment? Were they sent to internment camps because they were a threat to the country or for their own protection to save them from the British public intent on inflicting violence on them? Prisoners of the British: Internees and Prisoners of War during the First World War examines the truth of these views while also looking at the number of camps set up in the country and the public and press perception of the men held here.

Censored by the U.S. Army, Dorothea Lange's unseen photographs are the extraordinary photographic record of the Japanese American internment saga. This indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army—the majority of which have never been published—Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps. In the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World, Impounded, with the immediacy of its photographs, tells the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2006.

'Beguiling' The Times 'Compelling' Wall Street Journal 'A vivid portrait' Daily Mail Buried in the history of our most famous jail, a unique story of captivity, violence and race. British redcoats torch the White House and six thousand American sailors languish in the world's largest prisoner-of-war camp, Dartmoor. A myriad of races and backgrounds, with some prisoners as young as thirteen. Known as the 'hated cage', Dartmoor wasn't a place you'd expect to be full of life and invention. Yet prisoners taught each other foreign languages and science, put on plays and staged boxing matches. In daring efforts to escape they lived every prison-break cliche - how to hide the tunnel entrances, what to do with the earth... Drawing on meticulous research, The Hated Cage documents the extraordinary communities these men built within the prison - and the terrible massacre that destroyed these worlds. 'This is history as it ought to be - gripping, dynamic, vividly written' Marcus Rediker

When Edith Hofmann sat down to write this book, she was a 19-year-old coming to terms with the fact of her own survival. It is a story which describes a struggle; the struggle to come to terms with a haunting past, the struggle to survive, and the struggle to unburden a broken heart. It also embodies a struggle to form, in language, that which at times all but defies linguistic form. When Hofmann started writing this book she had only been speaking English for two years, and yet she wanted to convey her experiences, in English, to those with whom she had made her home. The cruel reality was that no one really wanted to hear. She poured out her soul, only to be told that 'no one was interested in the war any more'. This was 1950. Some fifty years later she revisited the manuscript, wondering whether such a text would have any value. For fifty years her text had lain in her drawer, waiting to be read. Her story is a novel, but it certainly is not a fiction. Scared for her own safety, Hofmann chose to write in the third person rather than pen a memoir. Every page is bound up with the intricate details of her life, those whom she loved, and those whom she lost; the echoes of those terrible years, and the memory they imposed. In compiling this text, she decided neither to change it, by removing discrepancies or updating anything, which Hofmann wrote in the late 1940s, nor to improve her English, but rather to leave it as a raw and indelible testimony not only to her survival but to her bid to survive survival. You will be moved; not only by what she has written, but by the fact that she wrote at all.

This book examines attitudes towards German held captive in Britain, drawing on original archival material including newspaper and newsreel content, diaries, sociological surveys and opinion polls, as well as official documentation and the archives of pressure groups and protest movements. Moving beyond conventional assessments of POW treatment which have focused on the development of policy, diplomatic relations, and the experience of the POWs themselves, this study refocuses the debate onto the attitude of the British public towards the standard of treatment of German POWs. In so doing, it reveals that the issue of POW treatment intersected with discussions of state power, human rights, gender relations, civility, and national character.