It looked harmless enough until - Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany

Place Europe: Germany
Accession Number ART34781.012
Collection type Art
Measurement sheet: 29 x 39.2 cm; image: 23.1 x 30 cm (irreg.)
Object type Work on paper
Physical description pen and ink, brush and ink wash, pencil on paper
Maker Comber, Albert
alpha lithograph
Place made United Kingdom: England, Greater London, London, United Kingdom: England, Shropshire
Date made 1945
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Description

Three officers seated in a room within the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III. The stove conceals the hole leading to the tunnel. Stalag Luft III (Stammlager Luftwasse III) was a German prisoner of war camp in Sagan (Sagan bei Breslau), Germany (now part of Poland) where Comber and other officers were held from September 1943 to January 1945. The prisoners planned their escape by digging the tunnel, but those who eventually got through and left the prison were shot by the Germans.