There were two prison camps in Colditz. The first is well known to older Britons: a huge Gothic castle perched on a hill in Germany, which housed the most restive Allied prisoners of war, a site that has its place in our national mythology.
In the other camp, on the outskirts of the city, were locked up hundreds of Jews from the Buchenwald concentration camp, condemned to work until death. In Aussenkommando 24, housed in the grounds of a former earthenware factory, nearly 700 Hungarian Jews produced weapons for the German war effort. Prisoners deemed “unfit” were murdered. Life expectancy was about three and a half months.
The prisoners of war in the castle know nothing about the second camp and the massacres taking place a few hundred meters from them. Even their German guards later claimed to have known nothing, a less plausible testimony. The day before Colditz was liberated by the American army, as the defeated German forces prepared to withdraw from the town, the SS guards set out to systematically execute the prisoners, shooting them in groups of five.
A television series and a board game
No one knows how many Jews perished in Aussenkommando 24. This other camp at Colditz has been almost completely eclipsed from history, eclipsed by the more familiar tale of the prisoners in their dismal fortress atop its promontory.
Colditz’s story was first told by Pat Reid, a colorful character who escaped and later wrote a series of books about the camp. For Reid, escape was a game; he had even invented a board game, Escape from
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The Times (London)The oldest of the British dailies (1785) and the best known abroad has belonged since 1981 to Rupert Murdoch. It has long been the reference newspaper and the voice of the establishment. Today, it has lost some of its influence and gossip accuses it of reflecting the conservative ideas of its owner. The Times switched to tabloid format in 2004.
Determined to no longer provide all its content for free, the British daily inaugurated in June 2010 a paid formula which obliges Internet users to subscribe to have access to its articles. Four months after the launch of the operation, the newspaper publishes the first results eagerly awaited by other press players: 105,000 people have become customers of its electronic offers. Among them, about half are regular subscribers to the various versions offered [site Internet, iPad et Kindle]. The others are occasional buyers. These figures, deemed satisfactory by the management of the Times should encourage other newspapers to accelerate their march towards paid access.
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