The Island of Extraordinary Captives

The police came for Peter Fleischmann in the early hours. It reminded the teenager of the Gestapo's moonlit roundups he had narrowly avoided at home in Berlin. Now, having endured a perilous journey to reach England - hiding from the rampaging Nazi thugs at his orphanage, boarding a Kindertransport to safety - here the aspiring artist was, on a ship bound for the Isle of Man, suspected of being a Nazi spy. What had gone wrong?

In May 1940, faced with a country gripped by paranoia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the internment of all German and Austrian citizens living in Britain. Most, like Peter, were refugees who had come to the country to escape Nazi oppression. They were now imprisoned by the very country in which they had staked their trust.

Painstakingly researched from dozens of unpublished first-hand accounts and previously classified documents, The Island of Extraordinary Captives tells, for the first time, the story of history's most astonishing internment camp and of how a group of world-renown artists, musicians and academics came to be seen as 'enemy aliens'.

The Island of Extraordinary Captives is the story of a battle between fear and compassion at a time of national crisis. It reveals how Britain's treatment of refugees during the Second World War led to one of the nation's most shameful missteps, and how hope and creativity can flourish in even the most challenging circumstances.

“PRAISE FOR A GAME OF BIRDS AND WOLVES :Compelling - Sunday TimesA triumph - Daily MirrorGrippingHistory writing at its best - BooklistSplendid . . . Simon Parkin's book rips along at full sail and is full of personality and personalities - Sunday ExpressVivid, engaging - New YorkerSheds compelling new light on the ferocious struggle being played out in the mid-Atlantic ... has all the elements of a film - Sunday TimesEngaging and skilful . . . [Parkin] writes with real flair and the human side of this story is brought out with fine vignettes and character sketches . . . If the place of women in Britain's naval war has been played down, Parkin's vivid story recovers it handsomely . . . Inside his narrative is a desire to show how ordinary people did extraordinary things in wartime . . . this is a good read on a corner of the war and the men and women who peopled it - one very much worthy of our attention. - Richard Overy, Guardian - Guardian”

Extraordinary yet previously untold true story . . . meticulously researched . . . it's also taut, compelling, and impossible to put down Daily Express
By shining a light upon the government's decision to intern the innocent, Simon Parkin's eye-opening, insightful and brilliantly written book serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of populism Daily Mirror
Compelling . . . In this "university of captives", Parkin has unearthed a small and riveting chunk of wartime history, easily overlooked -- Anne de Courcy The Telegraph
Vivid and moving . . . Spotlights a sorry aspect of Britain's war which deserves to be better known -- Max Hastings Sunday Times
The wealth of primary sources through which Parkin has trawled fill its pages with life; his enthusiasm for his subject fills it with affection. The reader is left with a powerful sense of Weissenborn's verdict on Hutchinson: to turn a prison camp into a university "was a miracle of the human will to live and to work". The Times
Meticulously researched Literary Review
Parkin [has an] inimitable capacity to find the human pulse in the underbelly of Britain's war...The Island of Extraordinary Captives is multi-layered...definitely worth the deep dive into Britain's inglorious war, when desperate men and women were disregarded, abused and left to fester in a humiliating no man's land. It's a reminder that conflict has always been a convenient mask behind which thuggery and xenophobia thrive. Yet, despite the stark injustice it describes, it is a curiously exhilarating read: an example of how individuals can find joy and meaning in the absurd and mundane. The Spectator
A brisk, vivid narrative...Parkin's success in bringing this shabby corner of Britain's wartime history to life is of more than historical interest. Times Literary Supplement
Parkin's account, with its well-chosen central figures and attention to the trauma that some of the imprisoned carried for decades, is testimony to human fortitude despite callous, hypocritical injustice -- Best Books of 2022 New Yorker
Riveting . . . a truly shocking story of what officials are wont to term 'national misjudgment' is electrifyingly told by the journalist and historian Simon Parkin, whose breadth and depth of original research has produced an account of cinematic vividness -- Juliet Nicolson New York Times Book Review
Parkin's rich and vivid account makes clear just how much the displaced artists did suffer, and the remarkable resilience and creativity with which they responded -- Matthew Reisz Observer
Excellent . . . Parkin has told his story with energy and flair . . . A powerful tribute to the wartime internees, and a timely reminder of how much Britain gained from their presence -- Charlie English Guardian

Simon Parkin is an award-winning British writer and journalist. He is a contributing writer for the New Yorker and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS), and is the author of A Game of Birds and Wolves and The Island of Extraordinary Captives, which was a New Yorker Book of the Year and won the Wingate Literary Prize. He lives in West Sussex.

The police came for Peter Fleischmann in the early hours. It reminded the teenager of the Gestapo's moonlit roundups he had narrowly avoided at home in Berlin. Now, having endured a perilous journey to reach England - hiding from the rampaging Nazi thugs at his orphanage, boarding a Kindertransport to safety - here the aspiring artist was, on a ship bound for the Isle of Man, suspected of being a Nazi spy. What had gone wrong?In May 1940, faced with a country gripped by paranoia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the internment of all German and Austrian citizens living in Britain. Most, like Peter, were refugees who had come to the country to escape Nazi oppression. They were now imprisoned by the very country in which they had staked their trust. Painstakingly researched from dozens of unpublished first-hand accounts and previously classified documents, The Island of Extraordinary Captives tells, for the first time, the story of history's most astonishing internment camp and of how a group of world-renown artists, musicians and academics came to be seen as 'enemy aliens'. The Island of Extraordinary Captives is the story of a battle between fear and compassion at a time of national crisis. It reveals how Britain's treatment of refugees during the Second World War led to one of the nation's most shameful missteps, and how hope and creativity can flourish in even the most challenging circumstances.

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