Down The Rabbit Hole: The Rover Review

Kit Jenkin reviews This Great Escape in Montreal's splendid Rover:

The form of the narrative is the book’s most compelling part. Steinmetz admits that he “planned to spit out the book chronologically, but as it is, my hard drive is crammed with research notes, transcriptions of family letters, photographs and multiple drafts of the endless permutations of my book so far.” As a result, major themes of this book are dislocation and alienation. Fittingly, the narrative is constructed around fragmented scenes and details of Paryla’s life, jumping from scene to detail and from narrative prose, to movie scripts, transcripts, lists, and emails, all in an attempt to piece his cousin’s life together.

The choice of abandoning normal linear memoir is important. One section of the book that beautifully illustrates the need to follow an unconventional form is a chapter that describes Steinmetz’s online research during his travels. Using an online search engine’s automatic translation feature for comments left on a German film review site, Steinmetz uncovers things that symbolize his whole project. One comment on The Great Escape translates into English from German as follows: “Class film, shot in the never get bored, despite the length. Even top performances by actors. As a teenager, I liked the film really happy, but when I look at it today, I find the humour inappropriate, especially the cheerful music theme.” In many ways, this literal translation with its disparate elements and non sequiturs is representative of the author’s holistic approach.

Full review here.

Unrelated But Related: Kapitein Luitenant Francis Steinmetz

- The Telegraph, Feb 2006

Kapitein Luitenant Francis Steinmetz, who has died aged 91, completed a successful "home run" escape from Colditz Castle by descending from the middle of a British rugby scrum into a manhole beneath the pitch.

He and Luitenant Etienne Larive, a fellow officer in the Dutch Royal Navy, hid in the hole for some hours while the German guards searched elsewhere after another Dutch officer had allowed himself to be captured with a pair of wire cutters. The manhole's cover was secured with a steel bolt, which the two escapers replaced with a glass replica which they could shatter by pushing from below.

After climbing out in the dark they replaced the original, walked off the field, which was outside the castle walls, and climbed over a wire fence and a wall before setting off for Ramsen on the Swiss border. They decided to head there because Larive had been told it was the best crossing point when he was interrogated after being captured in a previous escape attempt.

His German interrogation officer had arrogantly pointed it out on a map, and Larive memorised the location and later identified it on an escape committee map at Colditz.

Steinmetz and Larive travelled for 30 hours by train and on foot before entering Switzerland on August 18 1941.

On their arrival, they were confronted by the local police chief, who required them to sign a parole declaring that they would not attempt to escape, and then told them that they could live in freedom and safety there. If the pair decided to escape, the police chief told them, all they had to do was ring him up and tell him they were withdrawing their parole.

The phone call was never made. Taking advantage of a sealed train in which neutrals were able to pass through France into Spain, the Dutch Legation arranged for Steinmetz and Larive to travel as sugar planters on their way to Cuba. They were disguised to make them look over 40, which was considered over the age for combatants; provided with passports and visas; and given tickets for a neutral ship, Isla de Teneriffe, which was sailing for Havana from Barcelona.

As the ship passed through the Straits of Gibraltar the Royal Navy, which had been forewarned that two unusual passengers were aboard, sent a cutter alongside. A sub-lieutenant came aboard, placed the two Dutchmen under armed guard and took them off the ship amid protests from the captain and cheers from the 300 Jewish passengers. Steinmetz recorded that the young British officer, who seemed to revel in his role, had had the foresight to bring a bottle of whisky, which he felt marked him out as a future admiral.

Read the Telegraph's obituary of Kapitein Luitenant Francis Steinmetz here.

The Great Escape - A Canadian Story - Ted Barris

Here is a book to add to my holiday gift basket: The Great Escape - A Canadian Story (Dundurn Press) by author, journalist and broadcaster, Ted Barris. 

 "What most casual readers, history buffs, moviegoers, and even some who participated, don’t readily acknowledge is that The Great Escape was in many ways “made-in-Canada.” In The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, bestselling author Ted Barris recounts this nearly mythical escape operation through the voices of those involved, many of whom trained in Canada, served in RCAF bomber and fighter squadrons, were shot down over Europe, imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, and ultimately became co-conspirators in the actual Great Escape.

Based on his original interviews, research, and assembly of memoirs, letters, diaries, and personal photos, Ted Barris reveals that many of the escape’s key players – the tunnel designer, excavators, forgers, scroungers, security and intelligence personnel, custodian of the secret radio, and scores of security “stooges” and sand-dispersal “penguins” – were all Canadians."

Watch author Ted Barris' interview on Mansbridge One on One

Unnecessary Travel Lengthens The War

1963. The Great Escape – 
The Mirisch Company Inc. Presents

INT. TRAIN COMPARTMENT – DAY. 

The door opens and a Gestapo agent enters. He glances at the identity cards offered by a pair of SS officers. Not of interest, not on his list. In total there are 76 escaped prisoners from Stalag Luft III and Hitler has ordered a nation-wide manhunt, ein Grossfahndung. The Gestapo agent moves forward and then stops when he comes face to face with the actors Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson, escaped POWs disguised as businessmen on the Berlin-Breslau train. There is something about them.

A complete chapter from my upcoming book, This Great Escape: The Case of Michael Paryla, can be found here at the CNQ blog.

The Non-Fiction Thing

It was inspiring to find a recent post about Eva's Threepenny Theatre by Cristina Pietropaolo at The CanLit Thing, just as I am finishing up a book about Eva's son, Michael Paryla. Michael was an actor like his mother and father. Before his death in Hamburg, in 1967, he had a small part in John Sturge's The Great Escape. Actually, he played a Gestapo agent; and here he is on a train in the movie about to have words with Richard Attenborough and David McCallum:

In Eva's Threepenny Theatre, I give only a page to Michael's story. I have spent the last five years finding out about him. The book will be called This Great Escape - The Case of Michael Paryla.