Magic at War

In Germany’s largest prisoner of war camp, Stalag IV-B, a captured British parachutist learns magic from a magician-POW. Their shared interest in magic distracts them from the deprivations of prison life, bonds them in friendship, and gives the ‘apprentice’ a lifelong skill.   Andrew Corbett Mavor (1922-2016) grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. He started his working career in the Clyde shipyards until war intervened. In 1939, aged 17, Mavor left Glasgow to join the British Army. After junior soldier infantry training with The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, he transferred to The Royal Signals, the British Army’s communications specialists.   Fast forward to June 1944, 2991985 Lance Corporal Mavor was a radio operator in the British 6th Airborne Division, attached to the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, part of their 3rd Parachute Brigade.  After a year of training for airborne operations, Mavor and his 1st Canadian colleagues were about to take part in Operation Neptu...

Refugees from the Nazi regime began arriving in Britain long before war was declared on 3 September 1939. Many of these were Jews, escaping rising anti-Semitism and Hitler's persecution of their race. In November 1938, following a rise in violent attacks against Germany's Jewish population, the British Government changed its immigration laws. Realising it needed to respond to a humanitarian crisis, the government decided to allow the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children.  Many of the children's parents had been killed by the Nazi regime, or sent to concentration camps. Some parents were still alive, but had sent their children away in the hope that the youngsters would have a better chance of survival away from Germany. Known as Kindertransport , this unprecedented scheme led to 10,000 mainly Jewish children entering the U.K. from Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig. Other children that came were ‘non-Aryan...