Accidental journey

by Mark Lynton

Life at Cambridge was idyllic for the student elite in the Fall of 1939, redolent with a Brideshead Revisited ambiance that sheltered those inside from the harsh political realities brewing outside. Mark Lynton, ne Max-Otto Ludwig Loewenstein, a German Jew from a privileged background, was not unlike the other students, who barely noticed the war in those early days, keeping to his routine of attending lectures, playing squash and golf, going to movies and sherry parties. This all changed in an instant, as he and other German and Austrian aliens were interned suddenly and without warning and sent to Liverpool, and then Canada and finally back to Europe, thrown headlong into a turbulent seven-year odyssey far removed from the lotus-eating days of student life. This remarkable story follows the author as he exchanges privilege for privation and becomes part of the war effort, first as a private with shovel in the Pioneer Corps, then as an officer in the Royal Tank Corps, and finally, aft