Pierre Cocostéguy’s account, Comment je me suis évadé d’Allemagne après 747 jours de captivité (« How I escaped from Germany after 747 days of captivity »), published by Éditions Ikerzaleak in 2012, retraces the experience of a French prisoner of war during the Second World War.

In July 1942, after nearly two years of captivity, three French prisoners of war decided to escape from the German camp where they were held. Pierre Cocostéguy was one of them. His account retraces the preparation of this escape, the risks taken and the stages of a journey marked by clandestine movement, before regaining his freedom.

Through this personal testimony, the book conveys, close to lived experience, the detention conditions of French prisoners of war and the determination of those who sought to break free from captivity. The publication of this account thus helps to preserve and pass on an individual memory of the war and of captivity.

Pierre Cocostéguy, Comment je me suis évadé d’Allemagne après 747 jours de captivité, Éditions Ikerzaleak, 2012.