FRANCE: Out of the Stalags

Though beardless adolescents walked among them, they were all gaunt and old beyond their years. In the station's bright light they blinked, like men emerging from a cavern of despair into the sun. They were the lost sons of France, home from the prison camps of Germany, the vanguard of 2,500,000 prisoners of war still shut up in German Stalags and labor camps.

As many as 3,500 prisoners and deportees were returning each day; 20,000 had already been liberated on the Western Front, 15,000 in the east. Under the eye of the Ministry...

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