THE BARBED-WIRE UNIVERSITY
The Real Lives of Allied POWs in the Second World War
Midge Gillies
REVISED EDITION WITH NEW AFTERWORD
Contrary to the popular myth that escape was the main order of the day, Allied servicemen in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and the Far East, faced with years of boredom, were doing something just as astonishing: taking up the crafts and professions they’d pursued before their captivity – or learning new ones.
They formed orchestras (asking the Red Cross to send kettle drums), sat accountancy exams (textbooks, please), dressed up in drag to put on operas. They contested Ashes series, laid out golf courses in the exercise yard. When they needed medical care, their own surgeons perfected camp dentistry, fashioned prosthetic limbs. Little wonder that one camp in Germany became known as ‘the Barbed-Wire University’ . . .
Acclaimed on first publication, this superb book is now reissued with an extensive Afterword.
Midge Gillies is the author of Piccadilly, Amy Johnson, Waiting for Hitler, Army Wives and the forthcoming Atlantic Furies.
‘Brilliantly researched, fascinating and deeply moving,’ Mail on Sunday
‘These astonishing tales of improvisation, ingenuity and courage are enthralling,’ Spectator
‘What the reader is most likely to take away from this rich and well-researched book is a sense of the extraordinary ingenuity and resourcefulness so many POWs displayed,’ Sunday Times
‘An outstanding piece of scholarship that is as readable as it is informative,’ BBC History Magazine
July 2025
528pp
£16.99
198 x 129 mm
B-format paperback
Black and white illustrations throughout
978 1 0685162 2 1
History/Military