Metropole Internment Camp

Metropole camp was located towards the northern end of the Douglas promenade, just before Strathallan Crescent and Summer Hill.

“It was an interesting prison, three feet wide and six long, with a manger at one end on which you could neither sit nor lie, a small ventilator window and a cobbled floor which was always damp.

There were eight of these stall-cells, and the end one was used as a lavatory, so the stink was quite a revelation.”[3] Reveille was at 7am, when roll call was taken and physical exercises undertaken before breakfast.

Meals were generally taken communally, an unusual occurrence in the Manx internment camps possible only because of the large dining rooms stretching the length of the ground floor of the hotels.

A school existed in the Metropole Hotel where French, English, Latin, German and Russian classes were taught.

Cabaret performances were produced by internees in the dining room of Metropole Hotel, which was also used for indoor sports outside of mealtimes.

After an initial period at the beginning of the war, internees were permitted to apply to work outside of the camp on local farms.

Thefts from military stores and the occasional guard asleep on duty were reported, as were poor or forgotten searches of internees returning to the camp.

On 21 September 1942, two men broke through the wire to escape, but when they heard a guard approaching they hid in the Crescent Hotel next door to the camp.