brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

You wouldn't necessarily want to live inside the head of Laurence Rees, author of Horror in the East, but you could well argue that its should be compulsory for everyone to spend at least a few hours in his company. Beginning with the brutality of the conflict between Japan and China in the 1930s and ending with the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Horror in the East is a compelling account of the atrocities of war and, as with his sister volume The Nazis: A Warning from History, Rees has searched long and hard to find vivid and, at times mind-numbing, eyewitness accounts of man's inhumanity to man--not least from the recruits who were forced to kill restrained Chinese prisoners in bayonet practice.

For many popular historians, incidents such as the Rape of Nanking are simply labelled evil, thereby relieving them of the responsibility of thinking about what happened and trying to understand what motivates people to behave in such a way. Rees is too intelligent and fair-minded an historian for this; instead he explores how the Japanese army changed from a culture where prisoners of war were treated with civility and respect during the First World War to one where cruelty and barbarism ruled. Rees lays the blame squarely on the conformity demanded by the Emperor Hirohito and stresses that the Japanese army were often as brutal to their own as they were to their enemies. He also makes the point that revisionists tend to airbrush history to suit their own ends. Far more people died in the firebombing of Tokyo than died in either of the nuclear attacks, but the stain of Tokyo has long since been submerged under the more emotive mushroom clouds.

At the time Rees wrote Horror in the East, these attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were among the most powerful images of war in the world's history; already they have been superseded by the footage of the September 11, 2001 strikes on the World Trade Center in New York City. At times like these, when the need for objectivity and fair mindedness is at a premium, historians, such as Rees, are like gold dust. --John Crace

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

The Story is brought to an end, 14 Feb 2008
In Reid's 3rd and final book focusing exclusively on Oflag IVC, Colditz he adopts a different style of writing from his first 2, written some 25 years previously. In this book he discusses life at Colditz from the point of view of POWs from all the different nationalities that made up the camp inhabitants. The passing of time had allowed Reid to bring in to his stories more background information surrounding events outside the camp and the influence they had on matters inside. The lapse of time between his first two and his third also allowed Reid to draw on memoirs of former POWs subsequently separated by the Iron Wall which, by the time of writing, had begun to crumble. Although some may say the book may have lost some of the narrative description of the first two this is a different type of book with a different message. It is an important book for any Colditz enthusiast and well worth owning.

Colditz: The full story, 06 Aug 2004
There's nothing I can say about this book that is bad. It gives you the insight through the eyes of an officer held at colditz in the world war II years, it explains in detail all the escape attempts, which grips you like a novel. I suggest this book to anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the war, conditz or any other POW camp.

What I do not suggest, is this book to people that aren't interested in the war, the details in this book you may find 'un-needed'.

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

The Story is brought to an end, 14 Feb 2008
In Reid's 3rd and final book focusing exclusively on Oflag IVC, Colditz he adopts a different style of writing from his first 2, written some 25 years previously. In this book he discusses life at Colditz from the point of view of POWs from all the different nationalities that made up the camp inhabitants. The passing of time had allowed Reid to bring in to his stories more background information surrounding events outside the camp and the influence they had on matters inside. The lapse of time between his first two and his third also allowed Reid to draw on memoirs of former POWs subsequently separated by the Iron Wall which, by the time of writing, had begun to crumble. Although some may say the book may have lost some of the narrative description of the first two this is a different type of book with a different message. It is an important book for any Colditz enthusiast and well worth owning.

Colditz: The full story, 06 Aug 2004
There's nothing I can say about this book that is bad. It gives you the insight through the eyes of an officer held at colditz in the world war II years, it explains in detail all the escape attempts, which grips you like a novel. I suggest this book to anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the war, conditz or any other POW camp.

What I do not suggest, is this book to people that aren't interested in the war, the details in this book you may find 'un-needed'.

The Long Way Home by John McCallum, 19 Nov 2008
A brilliant and evocative book by an inspiring gentleman. My Mum read it to my Dad not long before he died and it gave them both greast pleasure at a time when Dad could no longer read so much for himself - it was a hark back to his own war years as a veteran of D Day and one of the first to land on Sword Beach as part of an anti tank division.

Not just my opinion, 01 Nov 2008
The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape (Isis (Hardcover Large Print)) I will admit firstly to being biased with regard to John McCallum's book, as I am his sister-in-law. However I enjoyed it very much and have passed it to many friends (most of whom have served in the forces during the last war) and without exception they all found it to be a fascinating read. It has also been read by the "younger" generation who found it most enjoyable and easy to read.

The Long Way Home John Mccallum, 13 Oct 2006
Brilliant moving story wonderfully told. Im proud to belong to such a great tradition of bravery, self sacrifice and luck.

timing is everything, 11 Aug 2006
Although its not the best written book on the subject
what is simply breathtakingly stagering is that three escaped pow's are not only on the run at the exact same time as the great escape, its is that they pass through the very same area onroute to freedom.
reading accounts of jimmy james one of the great escapers the whole country was awash with local meltia looking for the airmen from stalag luft drie how did they pull it off!!!

I like the way the author analytically looks for reasons why they where astonishingly fortunate
these men could never be so lucky again

The real 'great escape', 08 Oct 2005
This is a simple but truly remarkable story of three Glasgow boys, signalmen in the British Army during World War II, who, after tiring of captivity at the hands of their German adversaries, simply walked out of the POW camp in which they had been held and wandered, unchallenged, to Sweden and a safe passage home, to families and to the army.

It is a swaggering and often amusing story of courage, adventure and love, lost and found, which should be required reading for the generation who will never see a war on the scale fought by these brave men and their comrades.

The Long Way Home is a brilliant story, well told.

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

The Story is brought to an end, 14 Feb 2008
In Reid's 3rd and final book focusing exclusively on Oflag IVC, Colditz he adopts a different style of writing from his first 2, written some 25 years previously. In this book he discusses life at Colditz from the point of view of POWs from all the different nationalities that made up the camp inhabitants. The passing of time had allowed Reid to bring in to his stories more background information surrounding events outside the camp and the influence they had on matters inside. The lapse of time between his first two and his third also allowed Reid to draw on memoirs of former POWs subsequently separated by the Iron Wall which, by the time of writing, had begun to crumble. Although some may say the book may have lost some of the narrative description of the first two this is a different type of book with a different message. It is an important book for any Colditz enthusiast and well worth owning.

Colditz: The full story, 06 Aug 2004
There's nothing I can say about this book that is bad. It gives you the insight through the eyes of an officer held at colditz in the world war II years, it explains in detail all the escape attempts, which grips you like a novel. I suggest this book to anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the war, conditz or any other POW camp.

What I do not suggest, is this book to people that aren't interested in the war, the details in this book you may find 'un-needed'.

The Long Way Home by John McCallum, 19 Nov 2008
A brilliant and evocative book by an inspiring gentleman. My Mum read it to my Dad not long before he died and it gave them both greast pleasure at a time when Dad could no longer read so much for himself - it was a hark back to his own war years as a veteran of D Day and one of the first to land on Sword Beach as part of an anti tank division.

Not just my opinion, 01 Nov 2008
The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape (Isis (Hardcover Large Print)) I will admit firstly to being biased with regard to John McCallum's book, as I am his sister-in-law. However I enjoyed it very much and have passed it to many friends (most of whom have served in the forces during the last war) and without exception they all found it to be a fascinating read. It has also been read by the "younger" generation who found it most enjoyable and easy to read.

The Long Way Home John Mccallum, 13 Oct 2006
Brilliant moving story wonderfully told. Im proud to belong to such a great tradition of bravery, self sacrifice and luck.

timing is everything, 11 Aug 2006
Although its not the best written book on the subject
what is simply breathtakingly stagering is that three escaped pow's are not only on the run at the exact same time as the great escape, its is that they pass through the very same area onroute to freedom.
reading accounts of jimmy james one of the great escapers the whole country was awash with local meltia looking for the airmen from stalag luft drie how did they pull it off!!!

I like the way the author analytically looks for reasons why they where astonishingly fortunate
these men could never be so lucky again

The real 'great escape', 08 Oct 2005
This is a simple but truly remarkable story of three Glasgow boys, signalmen in the British Army during World War II, who, after tiring of captivity at the hands of their German adversaries, simply walked out of the POW camp in which they had been held and wandered, unchallenged, to Sweden and a safe passage home, to families and to the army.

It is a swaggering and often amusing story of courage, adventure and love, lost and found, which should be required reading for the generation who will never see a war on the scale fought by these brave men and their comrades.

The Long Way Home is a brilliant story, well told.

Essential!, 31 Dec 2004
This book opened my eyes. It tells of the dreadful conditions that exist at Guantanamo and the ways in which the American administration has justified the human rights abuses carried out there, ironically saying that impeding the President's power to make decisions on his own would be unconstitutional (whatever happened to the separation of powers, eh?)

Also worthy of consideration is how a Christian President can reconcile desperately trying to classify people as 'illegal combatants' instead of 'prisoners of war' - in order to deny them basic human rights and be able to torture them - with his beliefs.

It's all the more shocking when you realise that the abuses are authorised from the very highest levels of the US government and that the torture methods used there were authorised by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Read it!

You simply must read this book!, 03 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

You simply must read this book!, 01 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

The Story is brought to an end, 14 Feb 2008
In Reid's 3rd and final book focusing exclusively on Oflag IVC, Colditz he adopts a different style of writing from his first 2, written some 25 years previously. In this book he discusses life at Colditz from the point of view of POWs from all the different nationalities that made up the camp inhabitants. The passing of time had allowed Reid to bring in to his stories more background information surrounding events outside the camp and the influence they had on matters inside. The lapse of time between his first two and his third also allowed Reid to draw on memoirs of former POWs subsequently separated by the Iron Wall which, by the time of writing, had begun to crumble. Although some may say the book may have lost some of the narrative description of the first two this is a different type of book with a different message. It is an important book for any Colditz enthusiast and well worth owning.

Colditz: The full story, 06 Aug 2004
There's nothing I can say about this book that is bad. It gives you the insight through the eyes of an officer held at colditz in the world war II years, it explains in detail all the escape attempts, which grips you like a novel. I suggest this book to anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the war, conditz or any other POW camp.

What I do not suggest, is this book to people that aren't interested in the war, the details in this book you may find 'un-needed'.

The Long Way Home by John McCallum, 19 Nov 2008
A brilliant and evocative book by an inspiring gentleman. My Mum read it to my Dad not long before he died and it gave them both greast pleasure at a time when Dad could no longer read so much for himself - it was a hark back to his own war years as a veteran of D Day and one of the first to land on Sword Beach as part of an anti tank division.

Not just my opinion, 01 Nov 2008
The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape (Isis (Hardcover Large Print)) I will admit firstly to being biased with regard to John McCallum's book, as I am his sister-in-law. However I enjoyed it very much and have passed it to many friends (most of whom have served in the forces during the last war) and without exception they all found it to be a fascinating read. It has also been read by the "younger" generation who found it most enjoyable and easy to read.

The Long Way Home John Mccallum, 13 Oct 2006
Brilliant moving story wonderfully told. Im proud to belong to such a great tradition of bravery, self sacrifice and luck.

timing is everything, 11 Aug 2006
Although its not the best written book on the subject
what is simply breathtakingly stagering is that three escaped pow's are not only on the run at the exact same time as the great escape, its is that they pass through the very same area onroute to freedom.
reading accounts of jimmy james one of the great escapers the whole country was awash with local meltia looking for the airmen from stalag luft drie how did they pull it off!!!

I like the way the author analytically looks for reasons why they where astonishingly fortunate
these men could never be so lucky again

The real 'great escape', 08 Oct 2005
This is a simple but truly remarkable story of three Glasgow boys, signalmen in the British Army during World War II, who, after tiring of captivity at the hands of their German adversaries, simply walked out of the POW camp in which they had been held and wandered, unchallenged, to Sweden and a safe passage home, to families and to the army.

It is a swaggering and often amusing story of courage, adventure and love, lost and found, which should be required reading for the generation who will never see a war on the scale fought by these brave men and their comrades.

The Long Way Home is a brilliant story, well told.

Essential!, 31 Dec 2004
This book opened my eyes. It tells of the dreadful conditions that exist at Guantanamo and the ways in which the American administration has justified the human rights abuses carried out there, ironically saying that impeding the President's power to make decisions on his own would be unconstitutional (whatever happened to the separation of powers, eh?)

Also worthy of consideration is how a Christian President can reconcile desperately trying to classify people as 'illegal combatants' instead of 'prisoners of war' - in order to deny them basic human rights and be able to torture them - with his beliefs.

It's all the more shocking when you realise that the abuses are authorised from the very highest levels of the US government and that the torture methods used there were authorised by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Read it!

You simply must read this book!, 03 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

You simply must read this book!, 01 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

A generous book. , 20 Aug 2008
I was hoping to experience, through Bernard Offen's words, something candid, direct and real about a life that has been lived under such utterly different circumstances to mine. In fact, I have received much more. Bernard Offen's story has brought alive for me not only the details of the horrors of his survival in Poland, but also something of what it is like to grapple with that experience years on. It has brought alive the process of healing that brought Mr. Offen to write the book.

It has been a privilege to have Mr Offen let me walk by his side while he remembers, and to let me see so tangibly places such as the house where he and his family first lived, and later Krzemionki Cemetery where he hid after escaping Plaszow concentration camp. The significance of these places was underpinned by having read the preface, by Norman Jacobs, which was original, informative and drew me into the stark reality of Polish life at the time Bernard Offen was growing up.

I enjoyed the uncomplicated, natural and gentle tone of Mr Offen's voice. Above all, I feel the whole book comes together as a great demonstration of courage in all ways. I am left feeling inspired and humbled by Bernard Offen's story and hopeful that the 'journey of healing', which Mr. Offen refers to in his introduction, is possible, for all individuals and humanity as a whole.

About 'My Hometown Concentration Camp', 17 Aug 2008
My most striking impression is that this book reads as though it is written by an 11-year-old, with an innocence of timeless recall, as if of a memory of that age.
It is without any sense of hysteria that one might expect of the experience, however, any thoughts about the irreplacable loss of vitality of community life, would be so unbearable that one abides in the remaining silence, the presence of silence, stillness, as one follows the walk woven into a stream of recall, as the story is told in the silence of the walk. By reading the book I would like to return to Krakow and follow the walk, in memorium. Towards the end of the book (the third section) a maturity in the writing emerges, as written in the present day, by someone older looking back, about trauma and healing, as if the work has been done.

Excellent, informative and deeply touching account of one man's experience of the Holocaust, 07 Jul 2008
Bernard Offen's account of the years he spent as a child in the Kraków Ghetto and in a hideous run of concentration camps is all the more astonishing for the quiet, colloquial manner in which it is recounted. It is as if the author is standing by your side sharing his memories with you, encouraging you to accompany him on this most painful and extraordinary journey, talking you through some of the most unimaginable experiences in his simple and direct style.

Throughout the journey he acts as what feels like your very own guide on a tour of the Kraków Ghetto, the camps and a period of history that I have always tried to avoid reading about for fear of being `exposed' to horrors I would rather not contemplate. It is certainly true that parts of the book left me shaking my head in revulsion and near-disbelief. However, having just finished it, my overall feeling is that it is as inspiring as it is devastating.

Bernard Offen's reflections on the long journey of healing that he has undertaken since the war are deeply moving and inspiring and are a testament to the power of the human spirit at its most admirable. This is in stark contrast to the dark testament to its extreme opposite contained elsewhere within these pages.

The book includes an excellent preface by Norman G. Jacobs which sketches a backdrop to the events of WWII in Poland and provides an informative account of Jewish life in the country both before and after the war. At 117 pages it is very manageable in terms of length and I believe it would act as a fine accompaniment to secondary-level school history courses.

I would recommend the book to anyone interested in WWII, the Holocaust, or in questions about war, survival and healing. I would also recommend it to anyone like myself who has hitherto been reluctant to delve into this area of history. I can't think of a better introduction.

brilliant gripping read, 04 Nov 2008
i wondered if i was reading the right book when i started reading this one,starts of slow all about his life and railways (trainspotting i thought).boy was i WRONG once you get really into it - what a book you can not put it down it is sad but comical at the same time , what the writer went through would kill most people I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO MR LOMAX WOULD RECOMEND THE BOOK TO ANYBODY

The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax, 06 Aug 2008
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

OUTSTANDING!, 31 Jan 2008
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.



An honest and unique personal testimony, 22 Dec 2007
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. It is a fact that while that Japanese soldier's role was solely as translator and not physical torturer, for the writer the focus of that person's role as he suffered given the questioning he underwent had led to him reserving most hatred for him in his memories of events.The evidence learnt that the individual had devoted himself since the end of the War to charitable works around the events in Asia had made little impact till they met.

By the end the reconciliation and forgiveness which the author had denied as possible up to that point occur since as he accepts the hating has to stop.

A remarkable personal testimony though I have to admit I found it owes as much to the honest and simple factual writing style including the many admissions of personal mistakes and naivete on events both pre and post the war as well as the errors that led to his suffering the fate he did in Asia after capture by the Japanese.

poignant for today, 19 Oct 2007
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Informative, 30 Oct 2008
Laurence Rees does it again with another great read. Informative and full of facts. Only dissapointment was that the book is rather short and it was over too quickly.

must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 21 Jan 2003
Rees succeeds brilliantly in analysing and explaining why Japanese soldiers behaved as they did from the very beginning when they occupied China and committed war crimes on a scale that rivals those of the Nazis or, more recently for example those committed in Rwanda. He gives the reader a detailed insight into Japanese mentality, the social structure (to some extent still unchanged) and tries to get behind who was really in command in Japan at that time: the Japanese Officers or Hirohito. If you read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang (which I also recommend), by reading this book, you will know why it could happen. Highly recommended.

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

A must read for everyone interested in the Pacific War, 14 Jan 2003
This book has been long overdue and to my knowledge it is the first attempt at really explaining what drove Japanese soldiers to behaviour that, on occasions, made other war crimes look like the acts of "boy scouts". No account of WWII, the Pacific War, or of war crimes committed during WWII is complete without Rees' analysis of what drove soldiers and what made them tick during these times. He also draws some stunning paralles between the behaviour witnessed among German and Russian troops on the European Eastern Front and the Japanese in Asia. Read it!

Final part of a masterly trilogy, 30 Oct 2001
Without hype, and disgracefully neglected by the literary editors of the British press, Laurence Rees has been quietly producing a masterly study of the Second World War in a trilogy of books which accompany his three award-winning television series.

Horror in the East is a fitting culmination to the work begun in The Nazis - a Warning from History and War of the Century. With passion, but without losing the vital objectivity that is his trademark, both as a writer and as a producer, Rees not only tells us what the Japanese did in their wars in the East, but attempts to answer the question why. His conclusion is startling: that the crimes committed by the Japanese, the Nazis and the Russians, were a product of a "situational ethic" - that is, that young men were conditioned by their societies to behave in an inhumane way, and were able to cast aside moral restraint. In other words, they were no 'worse', intrinsically, than you and I.

I would very much like to see Rees develop this thesis and apply it to the allies: terror bombing in Germany and Japan for example - was this also only possible because of similar conditions prevailing in Britain and the US at that time?

As the world drifts into fresh horrors, books such as this one, and writers such as Rees, have never been more important.

The Story is brought to an end, 14 Feb 2008
In Reid's 3rd and final book focusing exclusively on Oflag IVC, Colditz he adopts a different style of writing from his first 2, written some 25 years previously. In this book he discusses life at Colditz from the point of view of POWs from all the different nationalities that made up the camp inhabitants. The passing of time had allowed Reid to bring in to his stories more background information surrounding events outside the camp and the influence they had on matters inside. The lapse of time between his first two and his third also allowed Reid to draw on memoirs of former POWs subsequently separated by the Iron Wall which, by the time of writing, had begun to crumble. Although some may say the book may have lost some of the narrative description of the first two this is a different type of book with a different message. It is an important book for any Colditz enthusiast and well worth owning.

Colditz: The full story, 06 Aug 2004
There's nothing I can say about this book that is bad. It gives you the insight through the eyes of an officer held at colditz in the world war II years, it explains in detail all the escape attempts, which grips you like a novel. I suggest this book to anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the war, conditz or any other POW camp.

What I do not suggest, is this book to people that aren't interested in the war, the details in this book you may find 'un-needed'.

The Long Way Home by John McCallum, 19 Nov 2008
A brilliant and evocative book by an inspiring gentleman. My Mum read it to my Dad not long before he died and it gave them both greast pleasure at a time when Dad could no longer read so much for himself - it was a hark back to his own war years as a veteran of D Day and one of the first to land on Sword Beach as part of an anti tank division.

Not just my opinion, 01 Nov 2008
The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape (Isis (Hardcover Large Print)) I will admit firstly to being biased with regard to John McCallum's book, as I am his sister-in-law. However I enjoyed it very much and have passed it to many friends (most of whom have served in the forces during the last war) and without exception they all found it to be a fascinating read. It has also been read by the "younger" generation who found it most enjoyable and easy to read.

The Long Way Home John Mccallum, 13 Oct 2006
Brilliant moving story wonderfully told. Im proud to belong to such a great tradition of bravery, self sacrifice and luck.

timing is everything, 11 Aug 2006
Although its not the best written book on the subject
what is simply breathtakingly stagering is that three escaped pow's are not only on the run at the exact same time as the great escape, its is that they pass through the very same area onroute to freedom.
reading accounts of jimmy james one of the great escapers the whole country was awash with local meltia looking for the airmen from stalag luft drie how did they pull it off!!!

I like the way the author analytically looks for reasons why they where astonishingly fortunate
these men could never be so lucky again

The real 'great escape', 08 Oct 2005
This is a simple but truly remarkable story of three Glasgow boys, signalmen in the British Army during World War II, who, after tiring of captivity at the hands of their German adversaries, simply walked out of the POW camp in which they had been held and wandered, unchallenged, to Sweden and a safe passage home, to families and to the army.

It is a swaggering and often amusing story of courage, adventure and love, lost and found, which should be required reading for the generation who will never see a war on the scale fought by these brave men and their comrades.

The Long Way Home is a brilliant story, well told.

Essential!, 31 Dec 2004
This book opened my eyes. It tells of the dreadful conditions that exist at Guantanamo and the ways in which the American administration has justified the human rights abuses carried out there, ironically saying that impeding the President's power to make decisions on his own would be unconstitutional (whatever happened to the separation of powers, eh?)

Also worthy of consideration is how a Christian President can reconcile desperately trying to classify people as 'illegal combatants' instead of 'prisoners of war' - in order to deny them basic human rights and be able to torture them - with his beliefs.

It's all the more shocking when you realise that the abuses are authorised from the very highest levels of the US government and that the torture methods used there were authorised by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Read it!

You simply must read this book!, 03 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

You simply must read this book!, 01 Nov 2004
In Guantánamo: America's War on Human Rights David Rose provides the most lucid and detailed account of the experiences of those detained in Guantanamo produced to date. It tells of the shocking ways in which detainees are 'recruited', methods which virtually guarantee that the majority will be innocent of any meaningful connection with al-Qaida, interrogated by officers whose most distinguishing credential would seem to be utter incompetence, and tortured by American soldiers given almost carte blanche by their government to use the most deplorable and sadistic means of extracting what will inevitably be false information from them. This book made me angrier than anything I've ever read. As the Guardian Review of Books put it on October 30, "Of all the books I have recommended this year, Guantánamo is the one I press upon you the most urgently. You must read it. It's as simple as that." I fully concur.

A generous book. , 20 Aug 2008
I was hoping to experience, through Bernard Offen's words, something candid, direct and real about a life that has been lived under such utterly different circumstances to mine. In fact, I have received much more. Bernard Offen's story has brought alive for me not only the details of the horrors of his survival in Poland, but also something of what it is like to grapple with that experience years on. It has brought alive the process of healing that brought Mr. Offen to write the book.

It has been a privilege to have Mr Offen let me walk by his side while he remembers, and to let me see so tangibly places such as the house where he and his family first lived, and later Krzemionki Cemetery where he hid after escaping Plaszow concentration camp. The significance of these places was underpinned by having read the preface, by Norman Jacobs, which was original, informative and drew me into the stark reality of Polish life at the time Bernard Offen was growing up.

I enjoyed the uncomplicated, natural and gentle tone of Mr Offen's voice. Above all, I feel the whole book comes together as a great demonstration of courage in all ways. I am left feeling inspired and humbled by Bernard Offen's story and hopeful that the 'journey of healing', which Mr. Offen refers to in his introduction, is possible, for all individuals and humanity as a whole.

About 'My Hometown Concentration Camp', 17 Aug 2008
My most striking impression is that this book reads as though it is written by an 11-year-old, with an innocence of timeless recall, as if of a memory of that age.
It is without any sense of hysteria that one might expect of the experience, however, any thoughts about the irreplacable loss of vitality of community life, would be so unbearable that one abides in the remaining silence, the presence of silence, stillness, as one follows the walk woven into a stream of recall, as the story is told in the silence of the walk. By reading the book I would like to return to Krakow and follow the walk, in memorium. Towards the end of the book (the third section) a maturity in the writing emerges, as written in the present day, by someone older looking back, about trauma and healing, as if the work has been done.

Excellent, informative and deeply touching account of one man's experience of the Holocaust, 07 Jul 2008
Bernard Offen's account of the years he spent as a child in the Kraków Ghetto and in a hideous run of concentration camps is all the more astonishing for the quiet, colloquial manner in which it is recounted. It is as if the author is standing by your side sharing his memories with you, encouraging you to accompany him on this most painful and extraordinary journey, talking you through some of the most unimaginable experiences in his simple and direct style.

Throughout the journey he acts as what feels like your very own guide on a tour of the Kraków Ghetto, the camps and a period of history that I have always tried to avoid reading about for fear of being `exposed' to horrors I would rather not contemplate. It is certainly true that parts of the book left me shaking my head in revulsion and near-disbelief. However, having just finished it, my overall feeling is that it is as inspiring as it is devastating.

Bernard Offen's reflections on the long journey of healing that he has undertaken since the war are deeply moving and inspiring and are a testament to the power of the human spirit at its most admirable. This is in stark contrast to the dark testament to its extreme opposite contained elsewhere within these pages.

The book includes an excellent preface by Norman G. Jacobs which sketches a backdrop to the events of WWII in Poland and provides an informative account of Jewish life in the country both before and after the war. At 117 pages it is very manageable in terms of length and I believe it would act as a fine accompaniment to secondary-level school history courses.

I would recommend the book to anyone interested in WWII, the Holocaust, or in questions about war, survival and healing. I would also recommend it to anyone like myself who has hitherto been reluctant to delve into this area of history. I can't think of a better introduction.


The other side of the coin, 18 Feb 2008
Eggers' pre war occupation as a school teacher was an ideal apprentiship for what WW2 had in store for him. This book, Eggers' account of his time at Oflag IVC, Colditz at times resembles the diary of a school teacher ranting and raving about his charges yet at the same time possesing a respect for them. Eggers described the POWs as 'our friends the enemy'. Although not the most popular of German Officers with the POWs, they often thought him 'treakly' (maybe he reminded the young men of an unpopular school master they had known only a few years previous) he did have their respect. This book, written a handful of years after the famous Reid publications, 'The Colditz Story' and 'The Latter Days', it gives a fascinating insight from the German point of view, be it just Egger's own. As a Camp Officer, and later the Security Officer, he was perfectly placed to reveal many things that at the time Reid and the other Allied writers did not know. Were there stooges? How were tunnels discovered? etc etc etc. As a piece of literature it sometimes does not flow as easily as say Reid but nevertheless it is a fascinating read. I often say this should, after the above 2 Reid books, be your 3rd addition to your Colditz collection. No Colditz enthusiast can be without it.

The teacher writes his report, 15 Feb 2008
Eggers' pre war occupation as a school teacher was an ideal apprentiship for what WW2 had in store for him. This book, Eggers' account of his time at Oflag IVC, Colditz at times resembles the diary of a school teacher ranting and raving about his charges yet at the same time possesing a respect for them. Eggers described the POWs as 'our friends the enemy'. Although not the most popular of German Officers with the POWs, they often thought him 'treakly' (maybe he reminded the young men of an unpopular school master they had known only a few years previous) he did have their respect. This book, written a handful of years after the famous Reid publications, 'The Colditz Story' and 'The Latter Days', it gives a fascinating insight from the German point of view, be it just Egger's own. As a Camp Officer, and later the Security Officer, he was perfectly placed to reveal many things that at the time Reid and the other Allied writers did not know. Were there stooges? How were tunnels discovered? etc etc etc. As a piece of literature it sometimes does not flow as easily as say Reid but nevertheless it is a fascinating read. I often say this should, after the above 2 Reid books, be your 3rd addition to your Colditz collection. No Colditz enthusiast can be without it.

The School Teacher discusses his pupils, 15 Feb 2008
Eggers' pre war occupation as a school teacher was an ideal apprentiship for what WW2 had in store for him. This book, Eggers' account of his time at Oflag IVC, Colditz at times resembles the diary of a school teacher ranting and raving about his charges yet at the same time possesing a respect for them. Eggers described the POWs as 'our friends the enemy'. Although not the most popular of German Officers with the POWs, they often thought him 'treakly' (maybe he reminded the young men of an unpopular school master they had known only a few years previous) he did have their respect. This book, written a handful of years after the famous Reid publications, 'The Colditz Story' and 'The Latter Days', it gives a fascinating insight from the German point of view, be it just Egger's own. As a Camp Officer, and later the Security Officer, he was perfectly placed to reveal many things that at the time Reid and the other Allied writers did not know. Were there stooges? How were tunnels discovered? etc etc etc. As a piece of literature it sometimes does not flow as easily as say Reid but nevertheless it is a fascinating read. I often say this should, after the above 2 Reid books, be your 3rd addition to your Colditz collection. No Colditz enthusiast can be without it.

A remarkable account from a German Officer about the camp., 29 Jul 2000
This was the first book about Colditz I ever read, and in many ways is still my favourite. It covers pretty much the whole story of Colditz PoW Camp, and shows how run ragged the German Guards really were. It has some memorably funny moments (especially the tale of Max and Moritz, who "filled in" on parades), some very sad moments, and some descriptions of escapes that are truly Gobsmacking - the Franz Josef attempt alone would be worth a novel. However, it needs to be read as a companion to other books such as "The Colditz Story" to really have full impact.