Captives of War

British Prisoners of War in Europe in the Second World War

Bibliographic Data

ID19906161
AuthorsClare Makepeace (Birkbeck, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2017
Publication date2017-10-12
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueCaptives of War (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781316536247
OpenAlexW2986139190
Open LibraryOL35828714M
ISBN9781316536247
LanguageEN
Citations received12

This is a pioneering history of the experience of captivity of British prisoners of war (POWs) in Europe during the Second World War, focussing on how they coped and came to terms with wartime imprisonment. Clare Makepeace reveals the ways in which POWs psychologically responded to surrender, the camaraderie and individualism that dominated life in the camps, and how, in their imagination, they constantly breached the barbed wire perimeter to be with their loved ones at home. Through the diaries, letters and log books written by seventy-five POWs, along with psychiatric research and reports, she explores the mental strains that tore through POWs' minds and the challenges that they faced upon homecoming. The book tells the story of wartime imprisonment through the love, fears, fantasies, loneliness, frustration and guilt that these men felt, shedding new light on what the experience of captivity meant for these men both during the war and after their liberation

Art history · Criminology · Homecoming · Imprisonment · Loneliness · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Prisoners of war · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Surrender · World War II · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Psychology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact · 1939-1945 · British · British Personal narratives · Diaries · german · German Prisoners and prisons · World War · World war, personal narratives · World war, personal narratives, british · World war, prisoners and prisons

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