They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

History

Hélion, Jean

Military

Franklin Classics

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Legare Street Press

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Europe

Nabu Press

They Shall Not Have Me the Capture Forced Labor and Escape of a French Prisoner of War - Primary Source Edition

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 military convention of perspective, when a slow column appeared in the hollow of my model vehicles of all descriptions buggies, farm wagons drawn by four, six, some times eight horses strangely loaded. Cattle and pedestrians followed. It dragged on towards the south, uninterrupted. Then cars, with trailers and carts in tow, shot by the horses and formed a dotted line to their left. I recognized it. It seemed to jump out of my past. Twenty two years ago, after a maddening night of bombing, I, too, fled from the north, hauling a cart. My mother pushed, her feet soon bled. Red and blue flares and explosions tore the sky beyond the city. Enormous and scarlet, the sun came up and washed out the lights of the battle of the Somme. Then I saw that the woman ahead of us wore a dressing gown, and carried an alarm clock, a beauty kit, and a ladle. Next to her, a girl pulled a wheelbarrow with her mother in it. Bundles were piled in the emaciated arms of the old woman, but her jaw hung open. She was dead, and the bundles fell on the road, one after the other. The girl didnt know it. 11 Downfall This was the same fatal hemorrhage, miming, flowing out of the deep wound that the invasion had, once more, Inflicted on my country. As if the exodus had propagated a plague, the villages around became devitalized. The popukticn disappeared, deserting crops, stock, cellars. Training was Interrupted. We spent days ardently combing the woods for parachutists, and found none. Formed into regu lar companies, we expected to leave for the front, and were eager to fight but our train never came. On the ninth of June, the next railway station, at Dreux, was neatly sprinkled with bombs by fifteen German dive bombers, hardly bothered by a weak antiaircraft fire. Where were the Allied airplanes We never saw them any more. German observation planes took their place above us, and strafed us a bit, every day, for fun. Paper headlines swelled enormously Treason . . . Our officers became nervous...

They Shall Not Have Me - The Capture, Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

Nielsen Press

The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, “They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor. Writing in English in 1943, after his risky escape to freedom in the United States, Hélion vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and smells of the camps, and shrewdly sizes up both captors and captured. In the deep humanity, humor, and unsentimental intelligence of his observations, we can recognize the artist whose long career included friendships with the likes of Mondrian, Giacometti, and Balthus, and an important role in shaping modern art movements. Hélion’s picture of almost two years without his art is a self-portrait of the artist as a man.

They Shall Not Have Me: The Capture, Forced Labor, and Escape of a French Prisoner in World War II

Arcade

Jean Hélion, the French painter who died at eighty-three in 1987, brought together in his copious and essential writing on art the theoretical authority of the intellectual and the fundamental insights of the craftsman in his studio. His writing extended throughout the five decades or more of his career. Soon after the young painter’s arrival in Paris from the provinces, he began a literary-art magazine; he wrote polemical articles as a leading avant-garde abstractionist; he wrote about the great tradition of figure painting while still painting abstractions; and he wrote journals, notes on studio practice, pieces about the role of the artist in society, and much more. His prolificacy is made more extraordinary because he wrote in two languageshaving lived in the United States for some years, he wrote many of his articles in English for an American and British audience. This volume collects, for the first time, the diverse writings by Hélion that appeared in print originally in English, including The Abstract Artist in Society,” Poussin, Seurat, and Double Rhythm,” Objects for a Painter,” and many more. Double Rhythm is sure to become essential reading for art historians and painters.

Double Rhythm: Writings About Painting (Artists & Art)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

A daring story of imprisonment and escape under the Nazi regime and a moving and engrossing symbol of resilience and integrity. The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner of war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor. Writing in English in 1943, after his risky escape to freedom in the United States, Hélion vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and smells of the camps, and shrewdly sizes up both captors and captured. In the deep humanity, humor, and unsentimental intelligence of his observations, we can recognize the artist whose long career included friendships with the likes of Mondrian, Giacometti, and Balthus, and an important role in shaping modern art movements. Hélion’s picture of almost two years without his art is a self-portrait of the artist as a man. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Individual Artists

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hélion, Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hélion, Jean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hélion, Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

They Shall Not Have Me the Capture Forced Labor and Escape of a French Prisoner of War - Primary Source Edition

They Shall Not Have Me - The Capture, Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War

They Shall Not Have Me: The Capture, Forced Labor, and Escape of a French Prisoner in World War II

Double Rhythm: Writings About Painting (Artists & Art)

They Shall Not Have Me: The Capture, Forced Labor, and Escape of a French Prisoner in World War II