“Based largely on a POW diary, this book sheds fresh light on the conditions facing POWs in Poland as the Nazi State collapsed . . . Very Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench Stalag XXA was a Second World War German POW camp for noncommissioned officers located in Nazi occupied Torun, in northern Poland. This book examines in detail what life was like in the camp for those held there, which over the course of the war numbered more than 60,000 men, including Polish, French, Belgians, British, Yugoslavians, Russians, Americans, Italians and Norwegians. The bulk of the book is based on a diary kept by Leonard Parker, a POW at Stalag XXA who was forced to undertake a march from the camp, commencing on January 19 1945, taking himself and his comrades to the Russian port of Odessa. It was a difficult march undertaken in harsh wintery conditions, where lack of food, the cold, and the fear of death were their constant companions. The final leg of their liberation saw the men of Stalag XXA board the Duchess of Richmond at Odessa, before arriving at Greenock, Scotland, on April 17 1945, and finally finding their freedom. “Under the format of a diary this book tells the story of Leonard Parker, his life and daily struggle of living in a prison camp . . . a great read . . . I would recommend this book to all. 5 stars.” —UK Historian

Nothing prepares a man for war and Private Charles Waite, of the Queen's Royal Regiment, was ill-prepared when his convoy took a wrong turning near Abbeville and met 400 German soldiers and half a dozen tanks. 'The day I was captured, I had a rifle but no ammunition.' He lost his freedom that day in May 1940 and didn't regain it until April 1945 when he was rescued by Americans near Berlin, having walked 1,600 kms from East Prussia. Silent for seventy years, Charles writes about his five lost years: the terrible things he saw and suffered; his forced work in a stone quarry and on farms; his period in solitary confinement for sabotage; and his long journey home in one of the worst winters on record, across the frozen river Elbe, to Berlin and liberation. His story is also about friendship, of physical and mental resilience and of compassion for everyone who suffered. Part of that story includes the terrible Long March, or Black March, when 80,000 British POWs were forced to trek through a vicious winter westwards across Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany as the Soviets approached. Thousands died. There are simply no memoirs of that terrible trek – except this one.

Early research on the Holocaust was characterized by studies of the extermination of the Jews without other victims of the Nazi policy of extermination being included. In the past twenty years, there has been a greater focus on such topics as prisoners of war and forced labourers in the Third Reich among scholars. This development of a wider perspective in research topics has revealed a need for more primary research. Based on this viewpoint, it was established that a need existed to expand the historical perspective by connecting the Holocaust with the treatment of prisoners of war. This book’s main goal is to make a contribution to the strengthening of studies on prisoners of war and forced labour. The volume consists of papers first presented at the Falstad symposium “Prisoners of War and Forced Labour— Histories of War and Occupation”, held at the Falstad Centre on November 20-21, 2008. Topics of the symposium included prisoners of war; prisoners in concentration and extermination camps, people imprisoned for political or racial reasons; and forced labour, meaning civilians forced to migrate or forced to work for the Germans. The contributions in the book represent a broad perspective including researchers from the USA, Poland, Austria, Israel, Russia, Finland, the UK and Norway. The introduction gives a brief overview of how different European countries are dealing with the problem of overcoming the past and the state of research in some of these countries.

Winner of the Best Non-Fiction by a Parliamentarian category at the Parliamentary Book Awards 2023 With a Foreword by Lord Hague of Richmond The Intelligence Corps is one of the smallest and most secretive elements of the British Army. It has existed in various guises since the early twentieth century, but it was only formally constituted in July 1940. In this book, Michael Ashcroft tells the astonishing stories of some of its most courageous and ingenious figures, who have operated all over the world from the First World War to the present day. Whether carrying out surveillance work on the street, monitoring and analysing communications, working on overseas stakeouts, receiving classified information from a well-placed contact or interrogating the enemy in the heat of war, a hugely diverse range of people have served in the Corps, often supplementing their individual professional skills with original thinking and leadership in the name of the Crown. This book pays tribute to them and shows why, in the words of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, 'No war can be conducted successfully without early and good intelligence.'

Stalag XXA was a Second World War German POW camp for non-commissioned officers located in Nazi occupied Torun, in northern Poland. The camp consisted of fifteen forts, which in September 1939, under the name of Stalag 357, was used to house Polish POWs who were captured after German forces had taken the Polish fort at Westerplatte. British POWs didn't arrive at the camp until June 1940, and were those captured during the Allied campaign in Norway, the evacuations of the British at Dunkirk, and the men of the 51st (Highland) Division at St. Valery. At its peak, the camp housed more than 10,000 men and was liberated by Russian forces on 1 February 1945.This book examines in detail what life was like in the camp for those held there, which over the course of the war numbered more than 60,000 men, including Polish, French, Belgians, British, Yugoslavians, Russians, Americans, Italians and Norwegians.The bulk of the book is based on a diary kept by Leonard Parker, a POW at Stalag XXA who was forced to undertake a march from the camp, commencing on 19 January 1945, taking himself and his comrades to the Russian port of Odessa. It was a difficult march undertaken in harsh wintery conditions, where lack of food, the cold, and the fear of death were their constant companions.The final leg of their liberation saw the men of Stalag XXA board the Duchess of Richmond at Odessa, before arriving at Greenock, Scotland, on 17 April 1945, and finally finding their freedom.

This is the inspiring story of two Gordon Highlanders Territorial Army battalions which saw action in some of the Second World War’s fiercest battles. After evacuation from Dunkirk, 6th Gordons fought in Tunisia in 1943, leading to the German surrender in North Africa. Following a spell in Iraq, the 1st London Scottish fought in Sicily and then the Battle of Monte Cassino where Private George Mitchell won his posthumous Victoria Cross, the most prestigious of the numerous gallantry awards to the men of both battalions. In January 1944, the 6th Gordons were the first British battalion ashore at Anzio. While the landing was unopposed, the Germans mounted devastating counter-attacks but, despite almost 400 killed, wounded and captured, the Battalion heroically held on. The 1st London Scottish arrived to fight alongside their Regimental ‘brethren’ suffering equally heavy devastating casualties. After the break-out, the Gordons pipe band led the liberation parade in Rome. Both battalions went on to fight up through Italy to smash the Gothic Line and eventual victory.

The previously-untold story of the life and tragic early death of John Curry, one of the most famous ice skaters in history. The book that inspired new film The Ice King, the story of John Curry's life. One winter's night in 1976, over 20 million people in Britain watched John Curry skate to Olympic gold on an ice rink in Austria. Many millions more watched around the world. Overnight he became one of the most famous men on the planet. He was awarded an OBE. He was chosen as BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Curry changed ice skating from marginal sport to high art. And yet the man was a mystery to a world that had been dazzled by his gift. Surely, men's skating was supposed to be Cossack-muscular, not sensual and ambiguous like this? Curry himself was a complex, tortured man. For the first time, Alone untangles the extraordinary web of his toxic, troubled, brilliant and short life. It is a story of childhood nightmares, furious ambition, sporting genius, lifelong rivalries, homophobia, Cold War politics, financial ruin and deep personal tragedy. So much more than a sports biography, Alone reveals the restless, impatient, often dark soul of a man whose words could lacerate, whose skating invariably moved audiences to tears, and who after succumbing to AIDS, as so many of his fellow artists and friends did, died of a heart attack aged just 44.

A history of the brave American men who flew and were shot down in Europe during World War II, but were able to escape imprisonment due to the efforts of those who aided them. A source of information on the European underground resistance groups of World War II. The book contains rare photographs, maps, and war documents.

Northern Poland, 1940: at the Nazi war camp Stalag XX-A, two men struck up an unlikely friendship which led to one of the most remarkable wartime escape stories ever told. Antony Coulthard was the privately educated son of wealthy parents with a degree in modern languages from Oxford. Fred Foster, the son of a bricklayer, had left school at 14. This mismatched young pair hatched a plan to disguise themselves and simply walk out of the camp, board a train, and head straight into the heart of Nazi Germany. This audacious plan involved 18 months of undercover work, including Antony spending 3 hours each evening teaching Fred German. They set off for the Swiss border via Germany, but when they reached the border town of Lake Constance, with Switzerland within their reach, Antony crossed over into freedom, while Fred's luck ran out. What happened to them both next is both heartbreaking and inspiring.

The stories behind various display items in the Military Intelligence Museum