Life during wartime A vivid depiction of a group of Austrian and German writers, artists and academics interned by a paranoid British government
In the days leading up to the outbreak of the second world war, writes Simon Parkin, the British police and intelligence services were “deluged with tipoffs about suspicious refugees and foreigners”. A beekeeper was detained when investigators found a diary entry reading:“Exchange British queen for Italian queen.” An art historian was reported by a neighbour who had heard some suspicious knocking noises (perhaps a secret coded message?) produced by the bed while he was having sex with his fiancee.
By the
