NetGalley Review: 5 starsLast updated on 30 Aug 2021"The Hutchinson Internment Camp was located on the Isle of Man, 80 miles from Liverpool and was called the artist's camp or later, barbed wire university. This was because so many of the German, Austrian and Jewish refugees who were sent there after war was declared were artists and refugee professors from Oxford or Cambridge, Nearly 1,000 men arrived on July 13, 1940 in the first intake and there were just 33 houses meant to be bed and breakfast and holiday boarding houses. At the start there was mild hysteria in Great Britain pitched by journalist Ward Price of the Daily News and others in the media and the government against fifth columns, like in America. All foreigners over the age of 16 were compelled to attend tribunals and assigned a classification letter. Initially only a's and some b's were arrested but then c's were taken away too. Author Dave Hannigan introduces readers to these men, many of whom had hair raising escapes from the Nazi regime. For many men the music, art, and lectures on all sorts of subjects from their fellow internees, kept their spirits up, although many suffered from depression and there were suicides. I was able to keep track of who was who and Hannigan leaves room at the end to tell of their post Hutchinson lives.

Several wrote memoirs and novels that I now want to find. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review."--Tracie Antonuk, librarian.