In December 1940, as the coldest winter in living memory fastened its grip on a war-torn Europe, the Nazi conquerors of France rounded up nearly 5,000 people, mostly women and children, and sent them to an internment camp. Their destination, Frontstalag 142, was in the Besançon army barracks near the German border, in conditions so bad that many died of the cold, of food poisoning and of disease. The internees had only one thing in common – they all held British papers: wealthy expatriates, holiday makers caught out by the speed of the Blitzkrieg, wives of First World War ‘tommies’, French nationals born in England, all were on the list.
Among them were two English ladies, the Misses Kathleen and Fanny Twemlow, great aunts of Katherine Lack’s husband. Aunt Kathleen soon succumbed to the terrible conditions, but was hospitalised and survived. Aunt Fan remained in the camps for a year until she was released at the age of 60. The conditions in Frontstalag 142 are revealed here in all their harrowing detail, through the diary Miss Twemlow kept and the memoirs of some of the other survivors. Aunt Fan was an artist, and her sketches of camp life, many drawn secretly on tiny scraps of paper and kept in the family ever since, give a poignant insight into the hardships these women endured in this forgotten chapter of the war.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Katherine Lack studied applied biology at Oxford and since then has turned her attention to a variety of historical topics. She is currently based at Birmingham University, researching the social history of the industrial revolution.
235 x 156 mm | hardback | 192 pages | 100 drawings and photos
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