Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War—Creativity Behind Barbed Wire

This book focuses on the numerous examples of creativity produced by POWs and civilian internees during their captivity, including: paintings, cartoons, craftwork, needlework, acting, musical compositions, magazine and newspaper articles, wood carving, and recycled Red Cross tins turned into plates, mugs and makeshift stoves, all which have previously received little attention. The authors of this volume show the wide potential of such items to inform us about the daily life and struggle for survival behind barbed wire. Previously dismissed as items which could only serve to illustrate POW memoirs and diaries, this book argues for a central role of all items of creativity in helping us to understand the true experience of life in captivity. The international authors draw upon a rich seam of material from their own case studies of POW and civilian internment camps across the world, to offer a range of interpretations of this diverse and extraordinary material.

Gilly Carr is a Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education, as well as a Fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Her publications focus on the material culture of internment, and on the legacy and heritage of the German occupation in the Channel Islands.

Harold Mytum’s research concentrates on the archaeology of western Britain and Ireland from the Iron Age to the present, and global historical archaeology (17th-20th centuries). He is exploring the interface between archaeology and cognate disciplines through one of his current research projects – the materiality of 20th-century internment.