Aaron Pegram – författare

Over the twentieth century 35,000 Australians suffered as prisoners of war in conflicts ranging from World War I to Korea. What was the reality of their captivity? Beyond Surrender presents for the first time the diversity of the Australian 'behind-the-wire' experience, dissecting fact from fiction and myth from reality. Beyond Surrender examines the impact that different types of camps, commandants and locations had on surrender, survival, prison life and the prospects of escape. It considers the attitudes of Australian governments to those who had surrendered, the work of relief agencies and the agony of families waiting at home for their husbands, brothers and fathers to be freed. Covering several conflicts and diverse sites of captivity, Beyond Surrender showcases new research from Kate Ariotti, Joan Beaumont, Lachlan Grant, Jeffrey Grey, Karl James, Jennifer Lawless, Peter Monteath, Melanie Oppenheimer, Aaron Pegram, Lucy Robertson, Seumas Spark and Christina Twomey.

Between 1916 and 1918, more than 3,800 men of the Australian Imperial Force were taken prisoner by German forces fighting on the Western Front. Australians captured in France and Belgium did not easily integrate into public narratives of Australia in the First World War and its commemorative rituals. Captivity was a story of surrender and inaction, at odds with the Anzac legend and a triumphant national memory. Soldiers captured on the Western Front endured a broad range of experiences in German captivity, yet all regarded survival as a personal triumph. Surviving the Great War is the first detailed analysis of the little-known story of Australians in German captivity in the First World War. By placing the hardships of prisoners of war in a broader social and military context, this book adds a new dimension to the national wartime experience and challenges popular representations of Australia's involvement in the First World War.