This jailbreak is the culmination of months of work (representative)
The mass escape of Allied prisoners of war from the infamous Stalag Luft III concentration camp in 1944 was immortalized in Hollywood.
But for nearly 80 years, the true story of the “Great Escape” prisoners has been hidden in the sealed archives of the British Ministry of Defense.
Now, details of the experiences of these and other World War II detainees have been revealed for the first time, after a trove of wartime records were handed over.
On the night of March 23-24, 1944, more than 70 Allied airmen dug tunnels out of the notorious prison camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
The escape was the culmination of months of work by the prisoners, who used ingenious techniques not only to plot the escape but also to receive and send messages from the camp.
In this 1963 film, Steve McQueen’s character attempts and fails to ride a stolen Nazi motorcycle over a barbed wire fence in his attempt to freedom.
Will Butler, co-curator of a new exhibition at the National Archives, said that in real life, 73 of the 76 escapees were captured.
“Fifty of those arrested were later executed by the Gestapo,” he told AFP.
The exhibition “The Great Escape: Extraordinary Prisoners of the Second World War” opens on Friday and explores some of the techniques detainees used to smuggle information during the war.
-Secret Message-
One of the most popular methods is coded letters, or letters with hidden messages, sent to family members in an apparently routine manner.
The clues written in the letter will only appear strange to the recipient, indicating that the letter should be forwarded to military intelligence.
In one such letter, captured Spitfire pilot Peter Gardner hid important information in a photo of fellow POW Guy Griffiths.
Experts believe the content Griffiths mentioned in the letter to his mother may have been a fabricated story for the purpose of MI9, the British intelligence service.
MI9 was set up by the British government at the start of the war to assist escapees.
When Gardner was captured after fleeing France in July 1941, he wrote the secret message in small font – impossible to read without magnification – painstakingly sandwiched between the image and the backing card.
These secret messages were often requests to smuggle items to assist the fugitive, such as radio parts, or in this case to forge false documents.
“On March 5, we have successfully provided various documents to some of the escapees, but it has been quite difficult to obtain the originals for copying,” he wrote.
“Accordingly, identification cards for foreign workers in Germany are requested… It is recommended to use suitable paper, such as fly leaf in books. India ink powder, three very fine nibs, is also requested,” he wrote in a secret letter in 1942 added.
Two years later, forged documents played a crucial role in the Stalag Luft III jailbreak.
Two of the three who returned used false documents to evade detection as they traveled through occupied Europe, claiming to be Norwegian electricians working in Germany.
– hide –
Butler, the archive’s head of military records, said that as well as soliciting material, the secret letters were used to provide MI9 with information about other prisoners of war who might be considered suitable candidates for intelligence work or planning an escape.
Other items in the exhibition include materials that were otherwise smuggled into the camps in packages to aid escapes.
These include a playing card with a hidden map or a hairbrush with a hidden map and saw.
The daring escape from Stalag Luft III may have captured the public imagination, but the lesser-known escape of 70 German prisoners from a concentration camp in Wales also features on the exhibition.
[1945年3月，逃亡者在三道铁丝网下挖隧道，然后被抓获并返回。
其他故事包括那些通过从戏剧到绘画等各种活动“精神上逃避”的人，例如英国作家兼剧作家 PG Wodehouse 和艺术家罗纳德·塞尔 (Ronald Searle)。
沃德豪斯在纳粹占领区的一个拘留营里被囚禁时至少写了一本小说，而塞尔则为新加坡樟宜营的战俘同伴以及在泰缅铁路上工作的人创作了 300 多幅草图。
（这篇报道未经 NDTV 工作人员编辑，是从联合提要自动生成的。）
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