The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp by Simon Parkin
This book is about how a great country can go off the rails a bit when confronted with the vagaries of war that led thousands of Jews and other persecuted people to flee to Britain as Hitler’s forces engulfed Europe. The story begins in November of 1938 when a seventeen-year old Jewish boy, Herschel Grynszpan, bought a pistol from a Parisian gun shop. He had been forced out of his home in Hanover, Germany, and ended up in France. Herschel was upset that 12,000 of his Jewish countrymen had been forced out of their homes two years earlier. The boy went to the German embassy and told the guard that he had an important note for the ambassador, who wasn’t in. Instead, Herschel met with Adolph Max von Rath, who was tasked with talking to people who didn’t have appointments. As soon as Rath asked for the message, he was shot three times.
Rath died the next day, the fifteenth anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 that started the ball rolling towards Hitler’s rise to power. The German response was swift and certain. Hitler condemned the assassination in his speech at the beer hall and reminded his followers about how Jews were the source of all problems. That night, SS troops burned down and destroyed hundreds of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses in Germany. The violence, forever known as Kristallnacht, or Crystal Night because of all of the broken glass, hardened the Nazis treatment of Jews and led to even more deportations and relocations to concentration camps.
Peter Fleischmann lived at the Auerbach orphanage. His parents had sent him to live with relatives in Berlin to get away from the Nazis, but that didn’t work out. He ended up at Auerbach after he found out that his parents had died. It was a pretty good place to grow up. Rich Jewish people funded it and the kids received a good education as well as art, music, and theater opportunities.
In late November of 1938, things changed as the Nazis continued to destroy Jewish businesses, homes, synagogues, and orphanages. Peter had to get out. With the help of Echen Kohsen, a rich woman who had taken an interest in him, Peter left Auerbach before it was destroyed.
Bertha Bracey led the Germany Emergency Committee which was dedicated to bringing Jewish families and individuals from Germany to England. The fifty-nine people who staffed the operation were mostly Quaker women. Their caseload was 14,000. Bertha had a gift of being able to make friends with Nazi thugs, including Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Goring, and Joachim von Ribbentrop, all high-ranking Reich officials. She had good working relationships with the German hierarchy and she was adept at getting the right documentation to bring people to Great Britain. One problem was the British government which, like most governments then, was anti-Semitic. Officials also feared that many of the refugees were spires for the Nazis, a silly notion since the Nazis were trying to imprison or kill these immigrants. Another issue was that most people did not believe that there were mass relocations and executions in Germany, although there were. London essentially looked the other way when Crystal Night happened, again believing that reports were exaggerated.
Israel stepped in to work with Bertha to bring children out of Germany by train from Berlin to the Netherlands to London. The program was called the Children’s Transport. Young people had to have sponsors who guaranteed food and shelter. Many Brits came through here.
Peter had been at the orphanage for twelve years when he received word that, despite being seventeen, rather old for transport, he had been accepted into the program. He left Germany on December 1, 1938, carrying some clothes, a small amount of money, and his stamp collection. The children on the train were excited about leaving the Reich and there was great joy on the trip.
Reporters greeted them at the British port of Harwich and many newspapers carried human interest stories about the Children's Transport. It took several hours to be processed into the country. Workers from Bertha Bracey’s Germany Emergency Committee greeted the young people and helped make them comfortable until they could be assigned to their foster families.
Peter ended up with his uncle, Walter Deutsch, in Manchester. Walter had been a college professor in Berlin until 1933 when Jewish academics were removed from classrooms. He moved to England where he got jobs as a professor and a researcher. Walter was not a warm person. He tolerated Peter but there was little affection. Peter left Walter after three unpleasant weeks and lived in rooming houses, initially doing menial labor to earn money. Later, he got a job as an artist, reproducing photos as portraits. Peter had spent a lot of time at the orphanage learning how to draw and paint and he was talented. His new job included a room as well as a nice weekly salary.
Britain’s security service, MI 5, had developed a list of potential German spies which essentially consisted of anyone who had come to Great Britain from Nazi Germany, including Peter. Many of these people were eventually rounded up and sent to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea which was essentially a huge prison.
British security interviewed every refugee from Germany. In September of 1939, about a year after leaving Germany, Peter went before the tribunal and convinced them that he was not a spy.
As the war went on, Brits became more concerned about spies in their midst. Tabloid newspapers ran articles about “fifth columnists” who were refugees who spied for the Nazis. One survey revealed that the average citizen thought that there were four million refugees from Nazi Germany in their country. There were only 73,000. As the author wrote, “Hysteria smothered logic.”
Peter was looking to move out of his room at work. He made friends with Donald Midgley, a middle-class family that offered Peter food and lodging.
May of 1940 was rough on Great Britain. Allied troops were routed at Dunkirk and the Nazis rolled into Belgium. In early June, the British cabinet decided that it was time to clamp down on German refugees, many of whom might be spies. Any German immigrants over 16 years old were to be rounded up and interrogated. “The refugees’ transformation from asylum seekers to enemy suspects was complete.” Hitler seized the moment and observed that Britain and Germany were similar in that both countries arrested people who threatened the state. On July 5, 1940, Peter was arrested.
As it turned out, there were spies in Britain, but they were almost always home-grown Nazi sympathizers and hard-core Jew haters.
Peter and other arrestees were forced to march many miles to Warth Mills, an abandoned factory complex that had been turned into a holding camp for prisoners including refugees as well as real German soldiers who had been captured. Those fellows were sure that Hitler would invade England soon and liberate everyone in Warth Mills. British soldiers confiscated all of the good things their internees had - money, candy, watches, books. The men slept in beds with thin mattresses that were 14 inches apart. It was very cold at night but each person only had one thin blanket. There was little food and limited water. Over 2,000 inmates shared a single bathtub and 18 water taps. Latrines were outside and very primitive. It wasn't much better than what the Nazis had set up for their prisoners, although there were no execution chambers in Britain.
Bertha Bracey, the Quaker woman who organized the exodus of Jews from Germany, set up a high-powered committee, the Central Department for Internal Refugees. designed to improve conditions for the displaced. She sent a colleague, William Hughes, to check on the camps, including Warth Mills. He was shocked at what he saw. He was also appalled that many of the men in the camps had been fleeing to avoid Nazi facilities that were just as bad. One inmate told Hughes that conditions at Dachau, where he had been held, were better than at Warth Mills.
After a week at the holding camp, Peter was sent to his permanent prison on the Isle of Man. The six-hour trip on a bouncing ship in a driving storm was actually fun for the men being transferred. Anywhere they ended up would be better than where they had been. Peter was assigned to the Hutchinson camp which consisted of 50 small boarding houses with nine rooms each. There was heat, toilets, and running water as well as a small yard with garden space.
Hutchinson’s commandant was Captain Hubert Daniel who had run a large food company in civilian life and was a good administrator. He understood that the men in his charge were not agitators or spies. They were just individuals who had gotten caught up in the maw of war. He was a thoroughly decent fellow. As one inmate put it, “He seemed to be a human being.”
The camp was self-governed. People elected representatives and a street father who would be in charge of several boarding houses. There were few rules, but sometimes order had to be imposed. Men could work and get paid a modest salary if they so chose. Radios were not allowed but the detainees had access to newspapers.
Peter soon realized that Hutchinson was home to many famous people, including filmmakers, journalists, writers, artists, musicians, poets, and athletes. The one thing that they had in common was that they were considered unreliable Europeans by British authorities. One of the first entertainments put on in the camp was a choral rendition of a Beethoven opera. There were no musical instruments but there were lots of good singers who put on a good show. Other detainees got busy doing their thing. Playwrights produced plays. Sculptors used improvised materials to sculpt. Artists scavenged paper and pencils to draw. Peter got into the creative rhythm of the camp. He asked people to give him any brown wrapping paper from parcels so he could draw on it.
Another benefit of Hutchinson was that some of the inmates were wealthy and had money sent to them. Sometimes they were allowed to buy special food from the guards - sausages, eggs, pastries, and such.
After a few weeks, the refugees held an election to select the leader of the camp, a president of sorts who would be a liaison between the prisoners and the British military. After a few ballots, the choice came down to a writer and a former Cambridge University dean. The academic won.
While Hutchinson was about as good as an internment camp can be, it was still a prison. Over time, men got bored and depressed. Since there were so many former professors there, it was easy to set up a university of sorts, with students able to select from a wide range of courses and lectures. The men referred to it as the University of Barbed Wire but many people signed up for courses. A twelve-person culture committee organized everything. By the end of the first month, fourteen lectures were available with more coming each week.
Some of the residents at Hutchinson were alleged to be German sympathizers and were deported back to Germany. Since almost none of the people identified as potential Hitler collaborators actually were, some people who were scheduled to be deported committed suicide rather than go to a Nazi concentration camp and a sure death. Others were deported to Canada or Australia on large troop ships. While those countries were preferable to Germany, many ships were torpedoed with a high death toll. Even those who survived deportation had their valuables taken away by British soldiers and sailors. Again, British hysteria about a non-existent fifth column overcame any rational process of identifying real enemies.
Artists at the refugee camp used their talent to create public art. Some cut designs into the red blackout curtains on their windows. Others sculpted pieces from wood that they scavenged. Eventually, camp leadership saw this as a good thing for morale and sponsored and supported art shows. Kurt Schwitters was a famous German artist who drew, gave monologues, did performance art and sculpted. He was considered a security risk by the Brits although he was just eccentric. He was the star of the camp, entertaining people at the Hutchinson Cafe that had been built at the camp.
The lectures, public art, and other cultural activities built a sense of community among the prisoners as well as opportunities for individuals to sharpen skills or learn new ones. Peter Fleischman was a fairly good artist who had only minimal formal instruction. He was skilled at drawing but knew little about painting. At Hutchinson, he associated with many famous artists who tutored him in various aspects of his craft. He was right in the middle of a community of mentors. Kurt Schwitters took a liking to Peter and taught him how to paint. Within a few weeks, the camp commander, Captain Daniel, bought art supplies for the camp which accelerated the artistic fervor in the camp.
While there was a lot of positive energy in the camp, it was still a prison. Over time, men became depressed. Those with families that they had lost touch with were particularly despondent. Peter did not get down because of his situation. He had no immediate family, and Hutchinson was the best place he had seen since leaving the orphanage.
After a few months, the British Home Office was hearing complaints about the mistreatment of the refugees. Various charities had sent inspectors to the camp. Although conditions were good for a prison, people were still confined against their will without having received any sort of trial. Political leaders had developed a list of 18 criteria that a detainee could cite in arguing for release. Most of them related to how useful the inmate would be to the war effort. Many of the people at Hutchinson were artists and writers who didn’t have the skills needed to beat the Germans. A committee was formed to write letters protesting the narrowness of the criteria.
In late summer of 1940, the first releases occurred, usually of married couples. Unless they possessed skills that were really needed, many were deported, usually to Canada or Australia. One German man who received a clear release with no strings was the elephant keeper at the London Zoo. The elephant refused to take food from anyone else so he was deemed essential and returned to London.
Another fifty men were soon released, but most of them were all connected politically which probably explained their success at being freed. Bertha Bracey, the Quaker woman who had done so much to help the refugees, inspected the camp and was appalled to find out that people who were released were given no money to get home. She left money to pay for trips home.
Ludwig Warschauer was a German Jewish engineer who ended up at Hutchinson after being kicked out of Germany. He kept asking Captain Daniel for permission to open a Technical School. Camp leadership was nervous about giving detainees access to technical equipment. Some detainees really might be Nazi sympathizers who might use technology to do bad things. Some people alleged that Warschauer was a German spy. Finally, Captain Daniel and his leadership team relented and gave their approval.
James Craufurd of MI5, the British security service, was interested in Ludwig Warschauer who, a few months earlier, had tried to pawn off a listening device that he supposedly stole from the Germans. There was a problem with it in that it didn’t work. MI5 did some digging and found that Warschauer was very close to prominent Nazis. He may not have been expelled from Germany. He may be a sleeper spy.
Craufurd developed some evidence that Warschauer was indeed an ex-German intelligence officer so he needed to be watched. MI5 operatives recruited inmates at Hutchinson to keep tabs on Ludwig who was constantly bragging about how bright he was and about all of his high-level Nazi and Gestapo contacts.
There were many married men interned on the Isle of Man. Their wives were assigned to a women’s prison, the Rushen internment camp, but there were regular meetings arranged for the couples every other week. The women’s camp contained a wide range of people including virulent anti-Semites who sometimes roomed with Jewish women. Tensions were much higher than in the men’s prison which did not have too many Nazis who hated Jews.
The Rushen camp commandants, Dame Joanna Cruikshank, was a socialite who had no clue how to reduce conflict among the women. In her view, Nazis and Jews were interned because they had done something wrong and that was that.
Back at the men's prison, detainees with a journalism background received permission to publish a paper every other week, The Camp, which soon became an essential means of information-gathering and communication for the inmates and the British leadership team.
Ludwig Warschauer may have been too tight with the Reich, but he was a skilled engineer who designed and oversaw the construction of an elaborate system of speakers all over the camp. The detainees had finally been given permission to listen to radio broadcasts and, because of Ludwig’s work, everyone could hear them as well as updates from Captain Daniel, the camp commandant. A committee was formed to select classical music records to be played over the system to entertain the camp.
In the Artist’s Cafe, which opened in the fall of 1940, Peter Fleischmann was talking to a group of friends about the good job Ludwig Warschauer had done with the speaker system. Someone said that Ludwig had been married to a famous heiress in Berlin, Echen Kohsen. She had befriended Peter before his arrest and he knew that she hadn’t been married to him. It turned out that Echen had been married to Warschauer for a year.
The war had been devastating for Echen. She was an heiress but the Nazis had taken most of what she owned. Because of the chaos around her, she had to send her two children, who had been friends with Peter, on the Children’s Transport to safety in Britain. Her parents had fled to England. She had no husband since her divorce from Ludwig Warschauer. She had met him after divorcing her first husband. He was a big deal in Berlin. he had arranged for her parents to get out of Germany. She wasn’t excited about marrying him but he was quite insistent and he had gotten her parents out of harm’s way. They were wed in a quiet civil ceremony. It didn’t last.
Echen visited Hutchinson in August of 1940 to see Ludwig. Although they were divorced, he still might be helpful to her down the road. She also still had feelings for him. Peter glimpsed her but had no chance to talk.
By the end of 1940, 85% of the 14,000 internees still imprisoned in Britain were on the Isle of Man. By then, most of the people who had something to offer Britain had been released. The remaining campers were stuck there. Peter was an “unsponsored case” which meant that he had no needed skills and he didn’t have friends in high places.
Bertha Bracey and her colleagues worked hard to improve conditions at the camp. They brought seeds and gardening equipment, textbooks to be used in classes, tools, and musical instruments. The culture committee continued its work of organizing plays, art shows, concert, lectures, and poetry readings. There was a big art show in June of 1940 that featured pieces by the many distinguished artists still on the Isle of Man. Being a great artist was not considered vital to the national interest so they stayed imprisoned. Peter had produced two of the eighty works on display. He was becoming a very good artist.
Ludwig Warschauer was also thriving. He was very good at having students in his Technical School work with camp leadership to get all sorts of tasks accomplished. Ludwig was still under suspicion, but he was a valuable asset for the camp.
In the late summer, more opportunities opened up for inmates to leave the camp and work on local farms. They would not get paid, but they did receive lots of local produce and dairy goods. This led to the formation of informal stores that sold food to inmates.
Once the inmates established that they would not try to escape, they were allowed to go to local theater events and other community activities. Several archaeology professors who were interned at the camp formed dig teams to explore local sites that might provide keys to the past.
Peter was anxious to leave. His documentation had been lost somewhere along the way so there was no record of his past few years. He was stuck. He was offered the option of joining the British Army Pioneers which would get him out of Hutchinson. Peter had a problem having to go to war to get out of an unfair imprisonment so he declined. Peter’s next best shot was to be accepted at an art school somewhere. His fellow artists used their influence to help him apply to various schools.
Echen was in London when two MI5 agents showed up. They greeted her as Mrs. Warschauer, which was technically true. While she and Ludwig separated soon after getting married, they never finalized the divorce. The war got in the way. She was given information indicating that Ludwig was indeed a high-level spy. She was shocked but when she thought about it, he did manage to get the Nazis to do what he wanted. She also recalled having many dinners with the high-level Nazi who was Warschauer’s handler.
Ludwig Warschauer had been engaged in lots of nasty activities - extortion was his specialty. He would go out drinking with a high-level government official, drug him, and put him in bed and take pictures of him passed out next to a woman who was not his wife. That usually worked to get the target to divulge sensitive information.
Warschauer applied for release before a special tribunal but the questions were all about his supposed status as a Nazi spy. He was a bit worried, but he talked his way out of any trouble. He was not given his freedom. MI5 operatives were upset. They knew he was a spy but he had skated.
Back at Hutchinson, more and more men had been released. Those left behind were “the forgotten, the vulnerable, the stateless,” including Peter. Some new detainees came to the camp, including many theater people. People from the Technical School worked with the actors and directors to create great lighting and sound effects for the plays, which were outstanding. The commandants brought in more newspapers and magazines and the food got better. Of course, it was still a prison.
In October of 1941, Peter got very good news from the Artist's Refugee Committee. He had been accepted at an art school in London and thus was eligible for release. Peter had been imprisoned for 14 months. He received an official certificate stating that he was a free man and walked out of Hutchinson.
Upon leaving the camp, Peter was given some money. He traveled to London and reunited briefly with Echen Kohsen/Warschauer. He then went to meet the people who were sponsoring him, Helen and her boyfriend, Carel, who had gotten Peter accepted to the Beckenham School of Art. Peter enjoyed being in school and soon found an older artist who mentored him.
Ludwig Warschauer was still trying to get out of Hutchinson. He had written detailed letters to the influential people that he knew in England, extolling the virtues of his Technical School and all of the good it had done for the detainees. MI5’s investigators kept finding more evidence that Ludwig was indeed a spy. Instead of gaining his freedom, in March of 1942 he was sent to Internment Camp 001 which was used to house high-security inmates.
James Craufurd was MI5’s point man in finding out the truth about Warschauer. After many interrogations, James learned that much of Warschauer’s impressive resume had been made up. He wasn’t even an engineer. He had been a sales person for an engineering firm but had no scientific background. Finally, Ludwig broke down and admitted that he had come to Britain as a German intelligence agent.
As the story unwound, the interrogators felt sorry for the spy. He had been coerced into working for the Nazis through threats to his family. His intelligence work involved giving descriptions about various factories that he had seen. Warschauer was asked to do more serious spying but he refused and was in danger of being kidnapped and returned to Germany and a concentration camp. Warschauer used his contacts to get assigned to Hutchinson, his best option.
Although MI5 uncovered Ludwig as a spy, he wasn’t very good at it. He didn’t get much information and there was no evidence that he actually passed on what he knew to Germany. His Technical School had trained hundreds of Hutchinson detainees, giving them skills that were badly needed in the war effort.
Echen visited Ludwig in his prison. He explained that he had been a spy for Germany. She was shocked at first. However, the fact that he was so good at getting papers for people should have been a clue about his relationship with the German government. A few weeks later, he was sent to a Brixton Prison until the authorities could figure out what to do with him.
After 18 months at Brixton, Warschauer was sent back to Hutchinson to revitalize the Technical School, which he did. When the war ended, MI5 decided that they would not prosecute the bumbling spy. They deported him to Germany where he became a successful plant manager.
Kurt Schwitters had been the star of Hutchinson, using his artistic, theater, and rhetorical skills to entertain his colleagues. After his release and return to London, he was bored and depressed. His wife, Helma, was in Norway which was occupied by Germany so he couldn't see her. He had a platonic relationship with a young woman art student, but he really missed his wife. He also was broke. No one would hire him, even for menial jobs. Ironically, being a detainee at Hutchinson gave him a much fuller life than being free in England.
In April of 1944, Schwitters had a small stroke. While recovering, he was visited by a prominent artist, Hugo Baruch, who had worked with Kurt many years earlier. Hugo wanted to sponsor a one-man show of Schwitters work. The exhibit was a modest success and Kurt’s depression went away.
Peter continued to enjoy school and he reestablished a relationship with Echen and her two kids. Peter told Echen that Ludwig Warschauer had done good things at Hutchinson running the Technical School. Despite that, she eventually sent off a “Dear Ludwig” letter and terminated the relationship.
Things were going well for Peter until March, 1943, when he received his draft notice. He wasn’t a natural fit for the army – he was an artist – but he ended up as an interpreter who interviewed German prisoners. Since Peter spoke fluent German, this was a good job for him. One requirement was that he change his name to something more British. He took the name of Midgley, the family that owned the studio where he had worked before being sent to Hutchinson.
Peter’s first assignment was to the Isle of Man where he had been imprisoned. He interviewed nasty German POWs who had done bad things. While Hutchinson remained a low-security facility, other parts of the camp had been converted into a real prison. Peter thought it interesting that a few years ago he had been guarded by British soldiers but now he was one of them.
Bertha Bracey and her Germany Emergency Committee continued to do good things. Early in the war, she received the Order of the British Empire, a very big deal. She kept working and using her connections to help people. Bertha reunited Jewish families and arranged transport for them to friendly countries. She helped thousands of refugees and concentration camp survivors turn their lives around. In 1989, she died in relative obscurity.
Peter went to Berlin to act as a post-war interpreter. He was shocked by the carnage he saw. He went to the Auerbach orphanage and found out that most of the children who were released with him never made it out. They were executed by SS thugs before they got to the train station.
Peter’s last military assignment was to be an interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials. He was assigned to work with the key leaders of the Third Reich, including Hermann Goring and Rudolf Hess.
Peter Fleischmann/Midgely left the service in early May of 1947. He finished at the Beckenham School of Art and became a professor there. His students loved him. Peter went on to be a very successful and renowned artist, with countless exhibitions and honors marking his professional career. He got married and had kids. He ended up having a very good life.
The author finishes the book by recounting all of the good things Hutchinson alums did during and after the war. The fact that no one except Ludwig Warschauer was proven to be a spy (and he barely was one) made the British government’s internment policy “stupid, dangerous, and horrible.” Some called the policy a war crime.
But there was another side to all of this. While no one liked being detained, the camp did provide a sense of camaraderie for many and it helped some people, including Peter, find their way in life.
Bob’s Take
So many WWII books. Since last September, seven of the seventeen Bob at the Bookshelf books were about World War II. Over the past year, there have been a lot of books published about the war. That’s probably because the war was the greatest conflict of all time and so many amazing things happened to so many people on their way to defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
Colditz Castle and Hutchinson Camp. This past March, I wrote about Colditz Castle which was a German prison camp for high-level detainees who like to try to escape. As was the case at Hutchinson, Colditz residents were very resourceful in finding ways to improve their situations, including secretly building a glider in the castle's attic. Unlike Colditz, no one tried to escape from Hutchinson. It was a low-security camp where the men had lots of room to do what they wanted to do and, since it was on a small island, there was no place to escape to. What both sets of detainees had in common was that they made the best out of a bad situation.
The British government grossly misrepresented the dangers the refugees posed to England. Churchill led the hysteria. Part of this was based on the fact that many refugees were Jewish and there was vile anti-Semitism in the war world.
Another reason for the rough treatment of refugees was fear. Early in the war, Germany was romping, conquering vast swaths of Europe. British leaders were literally afraid of a German invasion that would wipe them out, so they overreacted to the potential threat posed by German refugees.
While some observers suggested that Britain’s treatment of detainees was similar to what was happening in Nazi concentration camps, there was one clear difference. Britain acted out of fear, misplaced as it turned out. Hitler and the Nazis set up their death camps out of hatred of Jews, gypsies, gays, and others, with the goal of annihilating them. Great Britain was afraid of not surviving, so they over-reacted sometimes in the effort to preserve their country and way of life.
Detainees were really tough people. When they arrived at the Isle of Man, the refugees had few toilets, little food and water, and terrible living conditions. Like so many people who lived through World War II, they just got through it.
Yin and yang. The author crystalizes the two views of the camp: “Viewed kindly, Hutchinson had been a world of unparalleled opportunity, a time when historic forces had momentarily aligned to gather a unique cross section of men. In no other circumstances before or since have the university don, the local butcher, the celebrated Dadaist, the lawmaker, the baker, and the couture dressmaker been forced to cohabitate and, in doing so, enrich one another’s lives.”
On the other hand, since so many talented men were imprisoned for no good reason, the camp “represented only a colossal waste of personnel and resources, a squandering of talent and manpower, the embodiment of a panic measure born of historical ignorance and bedrock xenophobia.”
