Fountaindale Public Library

The island of extraordinary captives, a painter, a poet, an heiress, and a spy in a World War II British internment camp, Simon Parkin

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

contains biographical information

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

The island of extraordinary captives

bibliography

1311591173

Simon Parkin

a painter, a poet, an heiress, and a spy in a World War II British internment camp

Following the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, Peter Fleischmann evaded the Gestapo's roundups in Berlin by way of a perilous journey to England on a Kindertransport rescue, an effort sanctioned by the British to evacuate minors from Nazi-controlled areas. But he could not escape the British police, who came for him in the early hours and shipped him off to Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, under suspicion of being a spy for the very regime he had fled. Peter's story was no isolated incident. During Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, tens of thousands of German and Austrian Jews escaped and found refuge in Britain. After war broke out, faced with a nation gripped by paranoia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that these innocent asylum seekers - so-called "enemy aliens" - be sentenced to an indefinite period of internment. When Peter arrived at Hutchinson camp, he foundone of history's most astounding prison populations: renowned professors, composers, journalists, and artists. Together, they created a thriving cultural community complete with art exhibitions, lectures, musical performances, and poetry readings. The artists welcomed Peter as their pupil and forever changed the course of his life. Meanwhile, suspicions grew that a real spy was hiding among them - one connected to a vivacious heiress from Peter's past. Drawing from unpublished firsthand accounts and newly declassified documents from the British government, Simon Parkin tells the story of this unlikely group of internees

Barbed-Wire Matinee -- Five Shots -- Fire and Crystal -- The Rescuers -- Sunset Train -- The Basement and the Judge -- Spy Fever -- Nightmare Mill -- The Misted Isle -- The University of Barbed Wire -- The Vigil -- The Suicide Consultancy -- Into the Crucible -- The First Goodbyes -- Love and Paranoia -- The Heiress -- Art and Justice -- Home for Christmas? -- The Isle of Forgotten Men -- A Spy Cornered -- Return to the Mill -- The Final Trial

adult