Bibliograph

Prisoner of the Gestapo, a memoir of survival and captivity in wartime Poland, Tom Firth

Type

Label

Prisoner of the Gestapo, a memoir of survival and captivity in wartime Poland, Tom Firth

Language

eng

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

illustrationsmaps

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Prisoner of the Gestapo

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Oclc number

798579078

Responsibility statement

Tom Firth

Sub title

a memoir of survival and captivity in wartime Poland

Summary

Tom Firth was born in Japan where his English father and Polish mother were living. He begins by describing his unusual childhood and the devastating Yokohama earthquake in 1923. In 1930 the family settled in Warsaw, Poland. However they became split up when Poland became overrun by the Nazis and the Russians in 1939. Whilst his father and older brother were in England, Tom found himself trapped in the Russian-occupied part of the country and, after several agonizing months, eventually made his way to Warsaw where his mother had managed to survive the bombing of the city. He vividly describes life under both regimes, as well as the cat-and-mouse game his mother was forced to play with the Gestapo in order to avoid arrest. Later, both became deeply involved with the sheltering of escaped British prisoners of war and it was this activity which led to his capture and imprisonment in a jail in Krakow. Miraculously released after eighteen months captivity, largely due to his command of the Polish language, he vowed to escape to Britain at all cost

Classification

Creator