The survivors recorded here offer uniquely personal stories in this fascinating narrative of imprisonment during and immediately after World War II. Their gripping accounts weave determination and despair, grief and human, horror and hardship together in a universal tapestry of prison life, revealing details never before told about World War II POWs and the often unspeakable hardships they sustained. Their stories take the reader on an unforgettable journey through history and across the world, from the heinous crimes against prisoners in the Philippines to the little-known and undocumented life within political prisoners in the former East Germany.