In February 1943, 32 Irish merchant seaman were sent to a Nazi labour camp in northern Germany. They were being punished for refusing to join the Nazi war effort, and they became part of a slave work force that was used to construct an enormous bunker. However, in order to achieve this goal, the Nazis were prepared to work thousands of slaves to their deaths - including five of the Irishmen who died in one of their camps. This is their story.

This is the story of 32 merchant seamen from Ireland who were held in conditions of great hardship in an SS slave labour camp from 1943-45. They were being punished for refusing to join the German war effort, and they became part of a slave work force that was used to construct an enormous bunker near the village of Farge in northern Germany. The Nazis believed they could build a 'miracle boat' in this bunker which they thought could win the war. To achieve this, they were prepared to work thousands of their slaves to death, including five of the Irishmen who died in one of their camps. Despite the savage regime they were subjected to, and unlike some other Irishmen, they steadfastly resisted all attempts by the SS to turn them into collaborators with the Third Reich. This engrossing and dramatic book explores the fascinating and tragic story of hardship and struggle, and has been updated and expanded by the author following the huge response from readers of the previous edition, Suddenly While Abroad. *** "A fascinating account of a neglected aspect of Irish involvement in the Second World War...." --The Irish Times Subject: WWII, Irish Studies, History]

Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Named a Best Book of the Year by New York Magazine and The Progressive "A deeply honest and brave portrait of of an individual sensibility reckoning with her country's violent role in the world." —Hisham Matar, The New York Times Book Review In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul. Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naïve sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country—and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline. It would take leaving her home to discover what she came to think of as the two Americas: the country and its people, and the experience of American power around the world. She came to understand that anti-Americanism is not a violent pathology. It is, Hansen writes, “a broken heart . . . A one-hundred-year-old relationship.” Blending memoir, journalism, and history, and deeply attuned to the voices of those she met on her travels, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America’s place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation—a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of grave national and global turmoil.