The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Prisoners of War in Clayton
Enemy prisoners-of-war held in Clayton perform manual labour in this intriguing portrait of life in captivity in wartime Britain
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Overview
This insightful short film, made in Clayton during the Second World War, displays a rare look at enemy POWs carrying out manual labour in Britain. Initially, we follow two young children as they wander through the countryside before we come across a group of POWs. The men shift machinery and work hard on their tasks. Their occasional short and vacant gazes into the camera are haunting.
During the Second World War, a large number of Axis soldiers were held in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps in Britain. At the end of the war, there were over 400,000 enemy prisoners being held throughout the country. It is thought that around 25,000 of these prisoners elected to stay voluntarily in the UK after repatriation began. POWs were used for a variety of tasks in Britain, mainly consisting of manual labour and agricultural work in the countryside.
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