In October 1945, Micky Burn received a letter from his one-time lover, Ella van Heemstra. Her family had suffered grievously under Nazi occupation and Ella’s daughter Audrey, who had dreams of becoming a dancer, was suffering from jaundice, anemia, and an infection caused by malnutrition. Ella asked Burn if he could help her obtain penicillin, a

Humans need space as much as company,

The only way to save the Prominente, Denzler knew, was to “convince Berger that it would be to his personal advantage if he handed over his prominent prisoners.”

When food is short, some hoard, some benefit, and some share; only a person who has never experienced real hunger believes that he or she would never hide a few secret calories for themselves, or eye a neighbor’s crust with avarice.

In war, preparation is all, but it is hard to organize for the unknown.

It was, said Davies-Scourfield, a “very British situation”: an agreement in principle that nobody wanted to put into practice.

whom that prospect had receded to the point of near indifference. “Young men have grown old from weariness and hope deferred,”

the mere existence of a Bullingdon Club was further evidence of a determination to translate pre-war social norms into the artificial world of prison.

Clubs were, and remain, a bizarre British preoccupation. Whenever three or more Englishmen are gathered together, a minimum of two will attempt to form a club from which the others are excluded.