Cultural and Resistance Activities – Maintaining the Will to Survive
In their daily struggle for survival, prisoners clung to friendships and relationships in small groups. Intellectual and religious activities helped them to maintain their will to survive,as did the rare opportunities for cultural activities like drawing, woodcarving, talking about literature and reciting poetry or songs. In 1943/44, music, football, and evenings of entertainment were occasionally permitted, but only higher-ranking prisoners were allowed to attend such events. Prisoners could only send or receive a limited amount of letters, and the letters they did receive orsend were read by the camp’s censors.
Former prisoner Arthur Lange showing a British cameraman a radioreceiver hidden inside an electricitymeter. On this receiver, Langehad covertly listened to Allied radio broadcasts. Still from a film made by the British Army on May 5, 1945.