Your days are filled with the musty smell of soil, nervous perspiration, and tobacco.
Hope lies beyond a layer of prickly wire mesh.
If you squint in low light, you can imagine the fence is not even there. At night you dream of racing through the cool forest, alone and free. If your camp is located in the south or west, like Stalag 5A near Stuttgart, you head for Switzerland or Spain, hiking across fifty miles of German Alps or several hundred miles of occupied France. If your camp is in the north, like Stalag 10B or 2A near Hamburg, you aim for Sweden, a journey that requires a fifty-mile canoe paddle across the Baltic Sea. If your camp is east of Berlin, like Stalags Luft 3 and 7, you dash across the breadth of Poland toward the advancing Red Army.