Rachel Pistol
Seumas Spark reviews ‘British Internment and the Internment of Britons: Second World War camps, history and heritage’ edited by Gilly Carr and Rachel Pistol
Seumas Spark
Friday, 23 February 2024
The title and subtitle give it away. This edited collection considers two related subjects: the British practice of internment in World War II, and Britons’ experience of internment at the hands of enemy powers in that conflict. The editors define internment as ‘the state of civilian confinement caused by citizenship of a belligerent country’. Thus, the histories this book tells are those of civilian men, women, and children betrayed by nationality and circumstance, as opposed to those of military men captured in conflict. Each of the histories included here is worthy, and some are riveting. There is much in this volume that will be unfamiliar to students of internment and World War II generally.
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Published in
March 2024, no. 462