They Shall Not Have Me The Capture Forced Labor And Escape Of A French Prisoner Of War
- 446 pages
- 16 hours of reading
Jean Hélion Book order
Jean Hélion was a pioneering French painter, initially recognized as a leading modernist for his abstract works in the 1930s. Following a significant mid-career shift, he dedicated nearly five decades to figurative painting. Beyond his visual art, Hélion also authored several books and contributed extensively to critical discourse.
- 2022
- 2014
They Shall Not Have Me
- 464 pages
- 17 hours of reading
INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS. A daring story of imprisonment and escape under the Nazi regime and a moving and engrossing symbol of resilience and integrity. The French painter Jean Helion's unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner of war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Helion's infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, "They shall not have me!" but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor. Writing in English in 1943, after his risky escape to freedom in the United States, Helion vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and smells of the camps, and shrewdly sizes up both captors and captured