75th Anniversary of the Great Escape
The 75th anniversary of 50 allied soldiers being shot after trying to escape from a German prisoner of war camp, Stalag Luft III, is being remembered today.
The escape by these soldiers was immortalised in the 1963 movie The Great Escape which starred Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasence.
A diary written by Marcel Zillessen, one of the 200 prisoners who had been waiting to crawl through the escape tunnel but the alarm was raised before his turn came, is being displayed for the first time. Born in 1917 to a German father and an Irish mother, Marcel grew up in Bradford, Yorkshire, it is believed he was the inspiration behind James Garner's "the scrounger" character in the film.
Zilessen remained in the camp until 1945 when thousands of prisoners were take part in the Long March from their camp in Zagan in Poland to Spremberg in Eastern Germany. Luckily he was able to escape into a forest and was never recaptured.
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