"Many aspects of Britain's involvement in World War Two only slowly emerged from beneath of the barrage of official secrets and popular misconception. One of the most controversial issues, the internment of 'enemy aliens' (and also British subjects) on the Isle of Man, received its first thorough examination in this account by Connery Chappell of life in the Manx camps between 1940 and 1945." "At the outbreak of war there were approximately 75,000 people of Germanic origin living in Britain, and Whitehall decided to set up Enemy Alien Tribunals to screen these 'potential security risks'. The entry of Italy into the war almost doubled the workload. The first tribunal in February 1940 considered only 569 cases as high enough risks to warrant internment. The Isle of Man was chosen as the one place sufficiently removed from areas of military importance, but by the end of the year the number of enemy aliens on the island had reached 14,000." "Even now, there remains the persistent question never settled satisfactorily. Were the internments ever justified or even consistent?"--BOOK JACKET.

At the start of the Second World War there were estimated to be 75,000 'enemy aliens' living in Britain, each a potential security risk. To screen these, Enemy Alien Tribunals were set up, with the first tribunal judging only 569 cases serious enough to warrant internment. The Isle of man was chosen as somewhere secure enough to hold them. But when Italy entered the war in 1940, the tribunals' workload grew and, by the end of the year, the number of enemy aliens on the island had risen to 14,000. Who were these internees? How did they cope with being interned? Did any try to escape? What was daily life like inside the camps? How great a risk did they really pose? With the use of diaries, newspapers and personal testimonies, Island of Barbed Wire looks at the selection, arrival, living conditions and, ultimately, repatriation, of the internees. Their lives and the live of the Manx people they came into contact with would never be the same when this popular holiday isle was transformed into an internment camp for the duration of the war. And even now the question remains - was the policy of internment ever justified? Island of Barbed Wire was the first thorough examination into one of the more controversial happenings of World War Two.

The “riveting…truly shocking” (The New York Times Book Review) story of a Jewish orphan who fled Nazi Germany for London, only to be arrested and sent to a British internment camp for suspected foreign agents on the Isle of Man, alongside a renowned group of refugee musicians, intellectuals, artists, and—possibly—genuine spies. Following the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, Peter Fleischmann evaded the Gestapo’s roundups in Berlin by way of a perilous journey to England on a Kindertransport rescue, an effort sanctioned by the UK government to evacuate minors from Nazi-controlled areas.train. But he could not escape the British police, who came for him in the early hours and shipped him off to Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, under suspicion of being a spy for the very regime he had fled. During Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, tens of thousands of German and Austrian Jews like Peter escaped and found refuge in Britain. After war broke out and paranoia gripped the nation, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that these innocent asylum seekers—so-called “enemy aliens”—be interned. When Peter arrived at Hutchinson Camp, he found one of history’s most astounding prison populations: renowned professors, composers, journalists, and artists. Together, they created a thriving cultural community, complete with art exhibitions, lectures, musical performances, and poetry readings. The artists welcomed Peter as their pupil and forever changed the course of his life. Meanwhile, suspicions grew that a real spy was hiding among them—one connected to a vivacious heiress from Peter’s past. Drawing from unpublished first-person accounts and newly declassified government documents, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin reveals an “extraordinary yet previously untold true story” (Daily Express) that serves as a “testimony to human fortitude despite callous, hypocritical injustice” (The New Yorker) and “an example of how individuals can find joy and meaning in the absurd and mundane” (The Spectator).

What would happen if every creature on land and sea were free to be as rotten as possible? If every day was a free-for-all; if plants grew barbed wire; if the ocean were poison? That's life on Rotten Island. For creatures that slither, creep, and crawl, Rotten Island is paradise.

Barbed Wire University tells the extraordinary tale of Winston Churchill’s internment of some of the most gifted Jewish refugee writers, professors, artists, and painters of their generation in a camp on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. These were men who had fled Hitler’s Germany, found refuge in Britain, and then, in the hysteria of 1940, were held in captivity as a perceived security threat. They turned the camp—Hutchinson Camp—into a school, concert hall, and artistic community. Using memoirs and diaries, some of which have only recently become available in archives, Dave Hannigan pieces together a richly detailed account of what these remarkable men did during their time in captivity. This is a forgotten corner of World War II, and the way these men constructed a Bohemian idyll in the middle of the Irish Sea, their freedom taken from them, is an extraordinary tale of grit and creativity.