Essay On Behind Hitler's Lines By Thomas Taylor

Over the last few weeks I have continued reading Behind Hitler’s Lines by Thomas H. Taylor. Since my last journal, many events have happened in Behind Hitler’s Lines. Joe and his fellow prisoners lure a guard dog into their hut and then proceed to club and eat the dog for extra food. Joe also attempted another escape with two other prisoners and is successful. They escape through a fence after bribing a guard to ignore their attempt. They then wait for a train to pass by and jump on it. They ride the train in a grain car until they arrive at a train station and could tell they were being attached to another train. With an impromptu compass they realize they are headed west, towards Berlin. They decide to stay in the train car until they arrive

Early in the book Joe become weak from torture and looses his will to escape. After watching another prisoners escape, he begins to feel almost guilty that he didn’t go with him. “Joe thought about that a lot, wondered if he was loosing it: the daring and determination, even the physical ability, to escape—the will and guile to gauge the odds, then put it to the touch (Taylor 114). At this point I feel that Joe made a pact to himself to continue trying to escape until he physically cannot. Joe’s unit was instructed to work together to escape, and continue attempting until they cannot, and I feel that Joe took this to heart. Lastly I will be visualizing Joe’s latest escape in which his two companions are struck by machinegun fire. “They were up, running zigzag into scrub pines. The rifle fire was joined by a machine gun. Bullets struck Brewer on Joe’s left, Quinn on his right. The sound was like a hard slap (Taylor 270). The last quote is what painted the scene for me. Taylor describes this scene with the senses in mind as he describes the movement of the three would-be escapees, and the sound made. Taylor then goes on to describe Joe running on adrenaline as he imagined his goal and set forth towards