Craig Moore reports on The National Archives’ new exhibition, dedicated to profiling the diverse aspects of wartime incarceration in World War Two
The title Great Escapes – Remarkable Second World War Captives suggested to me that this exhibition would be all about World War Two POW breakouts. I expected to see a 1963 movie poster of Steve McQueen on a motorcycle preparing to leap over a barbed wire fence! Instead, I found a thoroughly researched and diverse exhibition. It was not a superficial study of different escape methods, interesting as that would have been, but rather covered all aspects of wartime incarceration – including the experiences of civilian internees.
Hundreds of thousands of people were held in captivity during World War Two – military POWs as well as civilians, including women and children. Few managed to escape and those forced to endure captivity usually lived in desperate conditions.
‘Records show that the British Government began to prepare to handle captives as soon as war was declared ...’
Records show that the British Government began to prepare to handle captives as soon as war was declared, based on the international agreements in the 1929 Geneva Convention. In S…
