British POWs and the Holocaust : witnessing the Nazi atrocities / Russell Wallis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wallis, Russell, author.

Series:

International library of twentieth century history ; 97.

International library of twentieth century history ; 97

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Jewish soldiers--Great Britain.

Jewish soldiers.

Prisoners of war--Germany.

Prisoners of war.

Prisoners of war--Great Britain.

World War, 1939-1945--Jews.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, German.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (274 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

[London, England] : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

Other Title:

British prisoners of war and the Holocaust

Place of Publication:

London, England : I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2019.

Summary:

In the network of Nazi camps across wartime Europe, prisoner of war institutions were often located next to the slave camps for Jews and Slavs; so that British PoWs across occupied Europe, over 200,000 men, were witnesses to the holocaust. The majority of those incarcerated were aware of the camps, but their testimony has never been fully published. Here, using eye-witness accounts held by the Holocaust Educational Trust, Russell Wallis rewrites the history of British prisoners and the Holocaust during the Second World War. He uncovers the histories of men such as Cyril Rofe, an Anglo-Jewish PoW who escaped from a work camp in Upper Silesia and fled eastwards towards the Russian lines, recounting his shattering experiences of the so-called 'bloodlands' of eastern Poland. Wallis also shows how and why the knowledge of those in the armed forces was never fully publicised, and how some PoW accounts were later exaggerated or fictionalised. British PoWs and the Holocaust will be an essential new oral history of the holocaust and an extraordinary insight into what was known and when about the greatest crime of the 20th century.

Contents:

British POWs : what they saw and understood

British POWs and Jewish POWs : a common experience?

Jewish POWs and Jewish inmates

The reaction of British POWs to the outworking of Nazi anti-Jewish policies

Comparisons

The limits of POW testimony.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-260) and index.

ISBN:

9781350985605

1350985600

9781786721945

1786721945

9781786731944

1786731940

OCLC:

1128164298