Jean Hélion Bücher

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