The Accidental Captives. The Story of Seven Women Alone in Nazi Germany

In April 1941, an Egyptian passenger ship sailing from New York to Cape Town was attacked and sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. The passengers were pulled from the waters and transported to Nazioccupied France, where the majority, as neutral citizens of the United States, were released and returned home. News of their fortunate escape soon broke and the story became an overnight sensation. Yet amidst the excitement generated by the captives' release, the fate of those left behind was all but forgotten.

Among these unlucky few were seven Canadian women, whose remarkable wartime journey was only just beginning. Interned in German detention camps as 'enemy aliens', they were eventually moved to Berlin, to await repatriation. But in a rare and uncharacteristic bureaucratic mix up when they arrived, this small group of 'enemy aliens' found themselves alone, stranded in the heart of Hitler's Germany. The accidental captives had no way home: abandoned, destitute and...