Living with the Wire edited by Yvonne M. Cresswell

Living with the Wire: Civilian Internment in the Isle of Man during the two World Wars

This fascinating publication reveals how internment was used in wartime by governments to protect their own citizens against resident foreigners of enemy nationality. In both World Wars fenced-off camps in the Isle of Man served as secure detention centres.

From 1914 to 1919 twenty nine thousand German and Austrian men were held here, and from 1940 tens of thousands of Germans, Austrians, Italians, Hungarians, Finns and Japanese found themselves behind barbed wire stockades.