AS SEEN ON THE BBC’S WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WITH WILL YOUNG

OUT NOW

Contrary to the popular myth that escape was the main order of the day, Allied servicemen in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and the Far East, faced with years of boredom, were doing something just as astonishing: taking up the crafts and professions they’d pursued before their captivity – or learning new ones.

They formed orchestras (asking the Red Cross to send kettle drums), sat accountancy exams (textbooks, please), dressed up in drag to put on operas. They contested Ashes series, laid out golf courses in the exercise yard. When they needed medical care, their own surgeons perfected camp dentistry, fashioned prosthetic limbs. Little wonder that one camp in Germany became known as ‘the Barbed-Wire University’ .

Acclaimed on first publication, this superb book is now reissued with an extensive Afterword.

‘Brilliantly researched, fascinating and deeply moving,’ Mail on Sunday

‘These astonishing tales of improvisation, ingenuity and courage are enthralling,’ Spectator

THE BARBED-WIRE UNIVERSITY

The Real Lives of Allied POWs During the Second World War

Midge Gillies

528pp
198 x 129 mm
B-format paperback
978 1 0685162 2 1
History

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