The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, A Poet, An Heiress, and a Spy In a World War II British Internment Camp

I found The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, A Poet, An Heiress, And A Spy In A World War II British Internment Camp (#1,176) while I was browsing the non-fiction section of New Books at our local library.  How could I resist a title like that?  Its author, Simon Parkin, tells how he came across his subject quite by accident while researching a previous book.

Imagine all the creative people living under the Nazi Regime whose work did not suit the Reich's ideology - writers, artists, musicians, journalists and Jews - escaping if they were able the reach of the Nazis in Britain, only to be rounded up in Britain and sent to internment camps as "enemy aliens" even if they had been resident in Britain for years.  That is precisely what happened, and many of these gifted individuals wound up in the Hutchinson Internment Camp on the Isle of Man out in the Irish Sea.

Mr. Parkin tells us who some of these extraordinary people were, the stories of how they wound up at Hutchinson and how they occupied themselves while they were there.  Mr. Parkin goes on the chronicle what happened to a number of these refugees over the years, and how many went on to faithfully serve the country which had put them there in terrible isolation.  It's a bit of British history that you don't usually find in books about World War II, but an illuminating one.  If you like history, add this book to your list.