JEAN HiUQN THEY SHALL NOT HAVE ME ne mauient pa The Capture, Forced Labor, and Escape of a French Prisoner of War BOOKS NC. DISTRIBUTED BY E. P. DUTTON COMPANY, INC. NEW rORK f 1943 TO MY COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY WHOM I HAVE LEFT IN GERMANY DIGGING POTATOES ON THE FARMS WORKING FOR LONG HOURS AS LITTLE AS THEY CAN IN FACTORIES THIS BOOK THEIR STORY IS DEDICATED BINDERY M 271949 OC7 2 2 CONTENTS Part I Downfall CHAPTER PAGE 1. War Game to Us ... n 2. Days of Rout . 14 3. Capture 44 K Captivity 4. Days of Hunger 53 5. A Prison Camp in France .... 65 6. Live Cargo for Germany 93 7 . Stalag II B, a Concentration Camp for War Prisoners in Pomerania 101 III Forced A A PHISOM OH THE POLISH 8. Fail 119 9. Winter 154 E A PRISON CAMP IN A BIG HARBOUt i o. Bound for Nowhere on a Banana Freighter 175 ii. Life around the Ko mmndofuhrer . 179 Contents CHAPTER PAGE 12. Life around the Lagerfiibrer . . . . 223 13. The Vertrmienmmnn 234 14. Nazi Propaganda in the Camp . . . 237 15. The Prisoners 256 1 6. Distractions and Intellectual Life . . 275 17. 87,461 Justice of the Peace .... 294 8. Letters, Packages and Red Cross Gifts . 304 1 9. Night Life on SS. Nordenham . . . 316 20. Story and Midnight Trial of a Barber . 347 21. My Last Kommmdofuhrer .... 355 IV Escape 22. Exit One Kriegsgefangene . . . . 373 23. Veillee DArmes ....... 384 24. Berlin Express ....... 394 25. In the Shade of Swastika Blossoms . . 399 26. With Thanks to the German Police . . 406 17. Reserved Quarters ...... 423 28. A Sick City . ...... 427 29. The Last Border ...... 434 PART DOWNFALL CHAPTER 1 to Us I WAS not sent to war. It came to me in Aiezieres en Drouais, a charming village west of Paris, where, for months, I had crawled upon the hills, ducked under blank shots, dug model trenches, and absorbed soporific chapters from the infantry sergeant handbook, very peacefully. Early one June morning, with the sixty men of my training platoon, I was sketching from a hill the valley beneath, accord ing to the militar