title: Journey Out of Darkness: The Real Story of American Heroes in Hitler's POW Camps--An Oral History (Praeger Security International)
author:  Hal LaCroix 
description: "Journalist La Croix and photographer Meyer provide the contexts but let the 19 soldiers, who now make weekly visits to a Veterans' Administration support group, talk for themselves about how it was in German prisoner-of-war camps. Their unique double experience of war, in combat and in the camps, their efforts to survive, the coincidences that saved them, the friends they lost, and their homecomings are compelling reading, particularly as some served as naturalized US citizens and two were Jewish." - <strong>American Libraries</strong>
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  ![cover](9781786063366_cover_epub.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The astonishing true story of a childhood journey from the occupied Channel
  Islands to the dark heart of a German prison camp
  
  
  # The Day  
  
  
  the Nazis  
  
  
  Came
  
  
  STEPHEN R. MATTHEWS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  # [DEDICATION](9781786063366_tableofcontents.html)
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is dedicated to the bright and cherished memory of my parents, Cecil
  and Eileen Matthews, whose fortitude, humour and dedication carried us all
  through those manifestly difficult and troubled times.
  
  
  To the immense courage of Franz ‘Otto’ Laib, the German deputy commandant who
  saved my life, and to Helen ‘Goldilocks’ Roschmann, the camp administrator and
  interpreter, whose devout values sustained many of the British prisoners in
  her charge; and to sister ‘Annie’, the German nurse who cared for all her
  patients, including my mother, in the camp hospital, irrespective of their
  race or creed.
  
  
  And, finally,