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A PoW’s experience in North Vietnam very much depended on whether or not he “cooperated” with his captors.The hardliners/trouble-makers who initially refused to divulge anything other than name, rank, date of birth, service number:They would be tortured until they gave the North Vietnamese camp authority what it wanted, which most of the time was not military secrets but innocuous information and anti-war propaganda statements.The chief torturer was nicknamed Pigeye by the PoWs and his most effective torture method was called “strappado” or “the rope trick” which created immense pain and dislocated both of the PoW’s shoulders. No PoW could resist Pigeye’s rope and they all agreed write or tape-record propaganda statements to stop the torture. But they always found ways to express their insincerity by deliberately adding obvious mispronunciations, odd choices of word or fictitious names.Whenever they invoked the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, they were told they were Criminals of War who bombed pagodas, schools, hospitals, etc. and the Geneva Convention weren’t applicable to them.They were held in solitary confinement for long period of time, typically more than a year (in the case of Navy Commander Jim Stockdale - 18 months, Airforce Major Sam Johnson - a record 42 months!)Some were not only held in solitary but also kept in hand and leg irons. When Navy Commander Jim Mulligan managed to send an encoded, secret message home, it read “Experts in Torture Hand and Leg Irons 16 hours a day”.Those who were captured early in the war in 1964 and 1965 thought they would go home in a year or less. They would actually spend 7–8 years languishing in prisons far far away from home.To communicate with each other while being held in solitary confinement, the PoWs tapped the AFLQV code into their shared wall or smuggled a note into a crack in a wall of the camp’s bathhouse.Eleven high-ranking PoWs who showed particularly stubborn resistance were - for over 2 years - held in a separate camp dubbed Alcatraz. This group was collectively known as The Alcatraz Gang or The Alcatraz Eleven. Here they were held across a courtyard and to communicate, they flashed their hands in front of the space beneath their doors, sending tap code visually.Communication between PoWs was strictly forbidden. Once, Navy Commander Harry Jenkins was caught communicating too overtly and was subsequently kept in irons for 86 days.Torture stopped in late 1969. It just stopped, abruptly. Other conditions gradually improved. In 1970, Commandant of Hoa Lo Prison (Hilton Hanoi) told Navy Commander Jerry Denton in no uncertain terms: “I want ideas from you on how we can apply humane treatment, including games and movies”To pass the time in prison, they turned their cells into classes and taught each other whatever they knew. Airforce Major Sam Johnson taught aerobatics, and even Navy flyers listened to him intently. Aero-engineer Bob Shumaker taught Sam Johnson French, he taught other PoWs to calculate trigonometric tables (sine, cosine and tangent) for every angle between 0 and 90 degrees. Others taught juggling, car repair, science, math, etc.Then of course there were those who willingly, fully cooperate with their North Vietnamese captors. The 7 most hated ‘collaborators’ were dubbed “The Outer Seven” by others. Among them, two senior PoWs frequently made anti-war propaganda broadcast over the camp network. Presumably, they also wrote anti-war statements. Surely “The Outer Seven” received better treatment than “The Alcatraz Eleven”. They had better food, were not tortured and they had roomates instead of being held in solitary.Hardline PoWs hated them very much and wanted to court-martial them once they came back to the States. However, when they returned in Operation Homecoming in early 1973, the Defense Department decided that POWs who had collaborated would not be prosecuted, and that was the end of that.Hoa Lo Prison today is a tourist attraction and several PoWs’ letters and anti-war statements are on exhibit there:U.S. escalation in Vietnam (the staircase) and U.S. aircraft going down in flames to the swamp/quagmire that was Vietnam. This statement explains how American and South Vietnamese strategies (Strategic hamlets, Pacification, Search-and-Destroy, Bombing, etc) failed.From mid-1970, all prisoner correspondence had to be sent on small, standardized, seven-line forms like this:A letter sent to the Vietnamese Camp Commander:

World war 2 was known as The Emergency in Neutral Ireland.Strictly speaking, they were not prisoners, but guests of the State, which was merely obligated to insure that they took no further part in the war.During The Emergency (1939-1946), internment of republicans was instituted by the Fianna Fáil Government of Éamon de Valera. As a result, IRA members who were arrested by the Garda Síochána were interned in the Curragh for the duration of hostilities. The camp was usually called Tin TownYou have the unique position of having Axis , Allied and IRA interned at the CurraghThey found themselves in Ireland during World War II. There were three sections in the camp at the time: one each for the IRA, Allied airmen and German mariners and airmen.British personnel were interned at the Curragh, whereas US personnel were repatriated due to an agreement between the Irish and US governments, though one US citizen, whose nationality had been stripped by the US Government for fighting with the British (in No. 133 Squadron RAF) prior to the US entry to the war, was also interned. The British and US "Internees" at the Curragh were not always strictly contained, and many were allowed to attend social events outside the detention camp,On 20 August 1940, the lack of preparedness of the Irish state was highlighted when a German four-engined Focke Wulf Condor, with a crew of six, crashed into Mount Brandon, Co. Kerry, following a meteorological and reconnaissance mission along the south coast. The government, unsure where to detain the Germans, discussed the issue for several days until it was decided that any belligerent that made landfall in the Irish Free State would be interned at the Irish army’s Curragh Camp. On 31 August 1940 the airmen were transferred to the Curragh and would remain interned until 13 August 1945. Throughout the conflict, the Irish government applied the 1907 Hague and 1929 Geneva conventions and two emergency decrees .In order to accommodate the belligerent servicemen, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed an internment camp that consisted of two separate sections—‘B’ for the British and ‘G’ for the Germans. The camp was constructed on the east side of the Curragh, just a mile away from ‘Tintown’ or No. 1 Internment Camp, which housed hundreds of Irish republicans. Although the Allied and Axis camp was officially acknowledged as No. 2 Internment Camp, it became known as K-Lines, taking its name from the original alphabetically named squares of the Curragh Camp. Interestingly, following recent research conducted by the Curragh Military Museum, it appears that the site of the internment camp was actually on the original I-Lines as delineated by Royal Engineer Major H.W. Lugard in 1855 (adjacent to ‘K’). The German internees were accommodated in bungalows that once housed the army married quarters.Department of External Affairs in chargeTo prevent the escape of the internees, the camp was surrounded by 14ft-high fences and barbed wire, and defended by four elevated machine-gun posts. The German compound consisted of five bungalows (20ft by 120ft), with an officer entitled to his own room and enlisted men assigned two to a room. The complex included electricity, stoves, hot and cold showers, indoor latrines, a kitchen, recreation room and anteroom. Naturally the internment camp’s security was under the direction of the Department of Defence and Curragh Command, but with diplomatic pressure from both the British and the German government concerning the incarnation of the internees it was decided that the Department of External Affairs should be in overall charge. Within the camp itself a rank system was maintained, and Oberleutnant Kurt Mollenhaurer of the Luftwaffe was officer-in-command until he was succeeded by a naval officer, Kaptaenleutnant Joachim Quedenfeld, in 1944.Like other neutral countries across Europe, particularly Switzerland and Sweden, the Curragh Camp adopted a relatively liberal parole system, and life as an internee was reasonably good. At first conditions were restrictive but became relaxed following complaints from the German representative to the Irish state, Herr Eduard Hempel. Over time, the relaxation of the parole system allowed internees to attend religious services, the cinema, dances, public houses and horse-races. The Germans were able to use the army recreational facilities and to compete against local and army sports teams.Moreover, eighteen German internees were allowed to attend classes at University College Dublin and a further three at the College of Technology, Bolton Street. Throughout their education, the students were housed in a number of private residential houses in areas such as Glenageary, Mount Merrion, Merrion Road, Rathmines, Lower Baggot Street and Sandymount. This was all under the condition that the internees would not ‘seek or accept any assistance’ to escape or ‘engage in any material activity or activities contrary to the interests of Eire’.Some married locallyDuring their incarceration, German officers and enlisted men received an income from the German Legation in Dublin. With constant Allied air attacks on German industrial and urban areas, the Allied ground offensive in the East and West and the subsequent territorial losses of the Third Reich, however, the German economy began to struggle in the latter stages of the war and became mostly directed towards the military production of vital goods. Payments from Berlin to the internees became erratic and ceased completely from March 1945. The families of the internees would also have been affected, with Hitler excluding them from state financial support if their relative had been captured without being critically wounded. In an effort to raise money and replace their lost income during the last year of the conflict, many Germans sought the opportunity to gain employment outside the camp. Although there were government and trade union concerns regarding the impact that this might have on Irish citizens seeking employment, it was generally agreed that the Germans should be allowed a source of income through casual employment. Throughout the local area surrounding the Curragh, Germans worked as labourers, tailors, stable hands, gardeners, painters, chefs, butchers, farmers and turf-cutters. Consequently, many Germans integrated well into the nearby communities and developed friendships with locals from the neighbouring towns of Kilcullen, Newbridge and Kildare; some even married local girls.As displayed at the Curragh Military Museum, another form of income was generated by the manufacturing of model aircraft, ships, military vehicles and barrack buildings from scrap plywood found around the camp. These were sold as gifts to members of the Irish army, their families and locals, and the Germans raised hundreds of pounds.By the end of the conflict, the Curragh had interned 54 Luftwaffe officers and 210 German sailors. Of these sailors, 164 were rescued by an Irish coaster, the MV Kerlogue, following a disastrous engagement against the British navy’s HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise in the Bay of Biscay on 27 December 1943. Despite orders from the British to bring the sailors into Fishguard, Wales, the Kerlogue, with a fresh cargo of oranges from Lisbon, refused and berthed safely in Cobh Harbour.With the increased numbers of German internees and the quiet repatriation of British internees in 1943 and 1944, K-Lines was eventually closed down. A new, poorly built camp was constructed adjacent to ‘Tintown’ to house all German internees together. The changes were met with disappointment and annoyance on the part of the Luftwaffe internees, who had spent years making K-Lines a comfortable home. In contrast, the comforts at ‘Tintown’ were meagre and the men were housed in cramped and damp conditions for the remaining months of the war.Following the military collapse of Germany in May 1945, the process of repatriating each German serviceman interned at the Curragh began. The Irish government had gained assurances from the Allies that no internee would be forced to return to the Russian zone of occupation. Restricted as to what they could bring home, the Germans held an auction to sell various items in their possession, including the toys and models they manufactured. On 13 August the majority of the Germans were removed, under armed escort, from the Curragh Camp to McKee Barracks and finally to Alexander Quay, Dublin, for embarkation.Despite their incarceration, many Germans retained happy memories of their time in Ireland, subsequently returning on many visits to County Kildare, with a few managing to become Irish citizens. Importantly for the heritage of the Curragh Camp and the Irish state, two of the bungalows that housed the Germans at K-Lines still remain and are in residential use. The corrugated-iron-clad chalet-style bungalows are considered a unique and rare artefact.German internees at the Curragh Camp - History IrelandHere are some extracts from The Irish Examiner that cover in some detail Internment in the Curragh camp of Allied and Axis service personalStrictly speaking, they were not prisoners, but guests of the State, which was merely obligated to insure that they took no further part in the war. Colonel Thomas McNally, the officer in charge of the Curragh command, considered them prisoners, however, and he ordered stringent security.“These prisoners in my opinion are the type who consider it a duty to affect escape at the first available opportunity,” McNally wrote. “As a race they are very tough and methodical and I feel will avail themselves of any laxity in the regulations which govern their internment.”The camp authorities were in a quandary when the German minister arrived at the camp with six bottles of wine. The men had been permitted to drink alcohol, read Irish newspapers, and even listen to the radio while in Cork. Now these facilities were being denied for no good reason.Mollenhauer complained about not even being able to get enough fresh air in the military hospital. Large nails had been driven into the window frames to prevent the windows in his room being opened more than a few inches for fear he might try to escape. There was already an iron grill on the window, and his leg was in plaster.Thus he welcomed his transfer to K Lines, where he was able to get all the fresh air he desired. The six internees were housed in two separate wooden bungalows — the officers in one and the NCOs in the other. All ate together in the same mess, at their own request.The German minister asked for a relaxation of the prison-like conditions, but the Army authorities moved slowly until the internment of the first British airman on September 29, 1940, added a new dimension to the internment question, especially as Pilot Officer Paul Mayhew was the son of prominent British businessman Basil Mayhew.Kurt Myck with Lillian White, who he met while a prisoner of war and who he married while still internedMayhew’s aircraft was actually the seventh British warplane to land in Ireland, but no effort was made to detain any of the crew of the others — even after the pilot of one plane went into the Garda station in Skerries to make a phone call after he set-down just off Dublin coast. Following the internment of the Germans, however, Irish authorities felt Mayhew had to be held.As a separate compound was being prepared at K Lines for Mayhew, Frederick Boland, the assistant secretary of the Department of External Affairs, warned the Army that the internment of the British airman was going to give rise to more difficult issues.“What we must be sure of,” Boland wrote, “is that we do not withhold reasonable and usual amenities which it might later be deemed to be expedient to grant to military internees of another nationality to obviate, for example, attacks in the British press.“We are under international obligation to keep these men in this country and to ensure that they do not escape and return to Germany. Once their safe custody is assured the men should be granted every facility and amenity calculated to soften their captivity and relieve their monotony.” He thought there were no grounds for denying the men a radio, newspapers, or magazines.The German government gave permission for the men to sign out of the camp on parole, promising on their honour not to try to escape, or take part in any activities relating to the war. The officers were given an allowance of £3 per week and the NCOs £2 per week, which compared favourably with the wage of less than £1 a week being paid to their guards. All of the internees were also given £5 each to purchase civilian clothes.The limited freedom granted on parole was quickly expanded. They were allowed to sign out each day within a 12-mile radius of the camp, and they could go to Dublin once a week.As the war continued, K Lines expanded with the addition of 45 other German airmen and 47 more Allied airmen. Within each compound, the internees were allowed to have a bar in which the Army sold drink duty-free.In October 1943 the Allied internees were moved to separate camp in Gormanston, Co Meath, and most were secretly freed. In a gesture towards the Germans, Mollenhauer and 19 of his colleagues were allowed to move to Dublin and enroll at University College, Dublin, or the College of Technology in Bolton Street. They stayed in groups of three or four in rented houses.The Garda Special Branch kept an eye on the students and their contacts. People who rented them accommodation were investigated, and the Special Branch informed the Army that some of the men had amorous involvements with their Irish landladies.Meanwhile, back at the Curragh, Kyck had fallen in love with Lilian White, who lived with her parents in the married quarters in Kildare Army Barracks. Her father — a sergeant in the Army — had served in Germany with the British army of occupation after World War One. That was when he met and married Lilian’s German mother.Thus Kyck looked on the Whites’ quarters as a home from home. He married Lilian while he was still interned.Mollenhauer married Dr Paula Mecklenburg from Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin, in 1947. They courted while he was attending UCD. Her parents were Germans who had moved to Ireland many years earlier.The students in Dublin were able to buy duty-free alcohol at K Lines, and they exploited this to supplement their incomes. In just one week in December 1944, the seven German internees living in two houses purchased over £352 worth of wine and spirits, even though their per diem allowance only amounted to two shillings and two pence each. Thus, in that week leading up to Christmas, they actually spent more than their total combined allowances for sixteen months.Shortly after the war ended in Europe, the Germans internees were repatriated. It took Kyck more than four years to get back and settle in this country, where he died in 2010, some 70 years after his initial arrival.German airmen were guests in Ireland not prisoners

Dear Friends,I had been on a spiritual journey for more than 20 years running in many temples and Ashrams seeking for Truth and meaning of Life. As a seeker I used to go to libraries in my town and read authors from various sources and of different times. On many many occasions I used to question, debate with many people in these Ashrams so that I could understand it rightly. I experimented lot of things which include various forms of meditations from Vipassana to Sufi Dervesh, Movements of Gurdjieff and Dynamic, Kundalini Meditation of Osho etc. Having read and listened to lot of literature (Vivekananda, Osho, Gurdjieff, JKrishnamurti, Ouspensky, Maurice, Ramana maharishi, UG, Eckhart Tolle, Nithyananda and so on) and being into various cults only raised my longing to know the Truth. Having tried so many things and with the time passing by my frustration was at the peak and I deeply felt that only a “Living Enlightened Master” can now really help me.One day watching video’s of Gurdjieff suddenly a video poped up “ Acharya Prashant on Gurdjieff” and I wondered and asked myself - There are very few people who has spoken on Gurdjieff except Osho in the recent times. My curiosity increased and I watched that video. I was fully drawn on the way Acharya ji was answering the questions. I immediately felt the impact. Then one after another I continuously watched the series on various topics. His video’s gave such a clarity and depth that when I listened to Osho and J Krishnamuti I could now understand them from a more profound angle. A voice within me immediately said that he’s the one you had been searching for. Meeting a living master in my Lifetime itself was as if Grace showered upon me and as if my prayers were answered. I immediately contacted the foundation and it was Anshu ji who helped me reach the Master. I registered for the 4 day Camp in Uttarakhand.The first time I saw Acharya ji speaking sitting in front of me, was a mid boggling phenomenon. I could not hold on to my thoughts and their grip on me was too feeble (which was otherwise so strong). As if the mind was blown away and my questions to him was very spontaneous. He destroyed my age old conditioning's and I was left with an unburdened self. MTM with him was as if a doctor is healing your wounds. That was an instance of transformation.Though I cannot relate myself to the one who was in search for Truth for all these years, I can only see it as a story of some fictitious entity living inside me who was fearful, confused, heavily burdened. Guru’s grace showered upon me and I can only offer tears of contentment at his feet.Thank you Acharya ji.Shat shat Naman.