The compelling true story of one young soldier’s five years in World War Two prison camps.
About the Book
The compelling true story of one young soldier’s five years in World War Two prison camps.
This book is the ideal companion to Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, Ernest Gordon’s To End All Wars, and And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran.
At just eighteen, fearing the rise of Nazi Germany, Keith Panter-Brick joined the Territorial Army in March 1939. Six months later, war broke out, and Panter-Brick was sent to France. His first taste of combat came in the spring of 1940, entrenched ahead of the Maginot Line. Unprepared for the devastating German blitzkrieg, he was captured in May 1940.
Drawing from his wartime diary, letters, and vivid memories, Panter-Brick recounts his harrowing years as a prisoner of war. Forced to work as virtual slave labour for the Germans in Poland, he worked on farms, in factories, and on roadworks. Particularly moving are his descriptions of the punishment endured in the infamous Graudenz prison and the brutal death march out of Poland in early 1945.
Yet Panter-Brick’s time in captivity was not one of unrelenting hardship. He reflects on how one camp, Fort 13 in Toruń, was transformed from a forbidding fortress into a mental oasis by its inmates. Within these camps, despite the physical deprivations, he experienced a period of deep self-reflection, emerging with newfound hope and a vision for his life beyond imprisonment.
In Years Not Wasted, Panter-Brick charts his personal journey from disillusionment to resilience, offering a testament to the triumph of humanity even in the darkest of times.
‘The book reveals a triumph of the human spirit as well as an indestructible optimism.’William Roger Louis, Kerr Professor, University of Texas at Austin
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