Sunday, March 24, 2013

British internees at Tost - World War 2 Talk

The story of British internees at Tost is covered at length in a book by Frederic Turner "les oubliés de 39-45 la rafle des Britanniques" (the forgotten of 39-45 the internment of the British).
Link here to an account of his book.
Frederic Turner is the son of the many tommies that fought in WWI, stayed in France after the war and married French girls. In July 1940, after the German invasion of France that led to Dunkirk and the armistice of 22 June, all British subjects that hadn't escaped to Britain were arrested and interned in Tost, upper Silesia (now in southern Poland).

I curate a web site on the long history of anglo-french friendship to keep the memory of these dramatic events of WW2. Link to it here.

My parents were fortunate to escape to England thanks to HMS Venomous on 20 May 1940. But my uncle and many other British subjects of the Calais region did not; they were arrested on 17 July 1940 and interned at Tost.

Also, among the British internees was PG Wodehouse. The BBC broadcasted on 25 March 2013 a fiction film on PG Wodehouse at Tost. Link here

With Frederic Turner, after viewing the trailer of this film, we consider it a romance that aims to rehabilitate PG Wodehouse whose conduct during his internment was not correct, as testified by several co-internees and recorded in Frederic Turner's book.

More on this story.

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