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THE GILDED CAGE soft cover
To order, call NEW IN 2ND EDITION
The front cover of the book features an aerial view of Camp 20 depicting its lovely setting in the lake country of Muskoka. The picture on the back cover (point to the front cover image to see it) shows a starker reality: chain-link fence and tangle of barbed wire confining the prisoners. Photos courtesy of the Gravenhurst Archives. |
The Gilded Cage: Gravenhurst German Prisoner-of-War Camp 20, 1940-1946 by Cecil Porter Was it incarceration or vacation? The residents of Gravenhurst in the heart of Ontario cottage country must have wondered, when the Canadian government chose a picturesque site overlooking nearby Lake Muskoka to imprison captured German officers. Camp 20 housed as many as 490 prisoners at a time during its six years in operation. Although confined by barbed wire and guard towers, they managed to devise an amazing array of cultural and recreational activities. Of course it was their duty to escape — or try to — and their many attempts ran the gamut from ingenious to reckless. There were dark moments too: tensions between the captors and captured, tensions between the Nazi radicals and the more moderate among the imprisoned. Written in a clear, engaging style and illustrated with a wonderful collection of historical photographs, this book provides an intriguing glance at a less well known aspect of Canadian war history. Much of the new content in the expanded second edition is a result of enthusiastic response to the original release by former prisoners and others who came forward with additional information and pictures from their private collections. ------ The Gilded Cage was designed and produced for the Gravenhurst Book Committee by Fox Meadow Creations. |
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