The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, A Poet, An Heiress, And A Spy in A World War II British Internment Camp, Parkin - B

                      The focus of this history is an internment camp set up on the Isle of Man at the war's outbreak. Britain interned enemy aliens whom they deemed to be security threats. Ironically, many of them had escaped Nazism, arriving in Britain as political refugees. Britain was motivated by the violence of Kristallnacht to welcome Jewish children to the UK. The 'Kindertransport' took place in 1939, but within a year, attitudes changed. After the fall of France, there was a movement to intern all Germans and Austrians as potential fifth columnists and spies. "The refugees transformation from asylum seekers to enemy suspects was complete. A spattering of arrests became a torrent."  Initially, conditions in the transit camps were no better than on the continent. Life on the Isle of Man was much better. At the Hutchinson Camp, the British leadership acknowledged sympathy for the plight of the interned. Hutchinson housed noted jurists, businessmen and an abundance of artists and musicians, as well as a Hohenzollern prince. The internees organized a command structure and began a lecture series featuring noted scholars. Within a month, there were forty lectures per week, soccer matches, chess tournaments and a technical school. Fully 80% of the internees were Jewish, a fact that garnered world wide attention and approbation. As the fear of invasion faded, some were allowed to leave. As the year went on, it became apparent that many, many internees should have not been there and more were released. The discipline relaxed as groups were allowed to go to a museum and one group actually helped on an archaeological dig. By March, 1942, half of the 25,000 interned the previous summer were released. The camp slowly emptied and was a POW camp at war's end. Many of the internees remained in Britain, anglicized their surnames, and made material contributions to post-war Britain. This stain on the UK's war memories is still shrouded in secrecy and long forgotten.