Happy Hour with a Historian: A Jewish Airman’s Illustrated WWII POW Diaries

When Gerald M. Limon’s plane was shot down over Germany during World War II, the Jewish navigator became a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft I, where he would spend sixteen months in captivity. What Gerald created inside the POW camp is far more than a diary. Across its pages are remarkably detailed hand-drawn maps of the war’s progress, cartoons and illustrations, poems he had apparently committed to memory, observations of daily life, and meticulous lists of his fellow POWs — their names, their home addresses, and even the first thing each planned to do when he finally made it home (one answer: “Girls, girls, girls.”). Together, the pages form an extraordinary record of captivity: part diary, part sketchbook, part military chronicle, part scrapbook, and part testament to the ways human beings preserve humor, intellect, imagination, and connection under unimaginable circumstances. Gerald never had the chance to tell his daughter Patti these stories himself. He died when she was three years old, likely from injuries connected to his wartime service. Decades later, Patti Limon Sands discovered his POW diaries and, through them, began to encounter a father she had barely had the chance to know. For this special Happy Hour with a Historian, Patti will bring us inside Gerald’s remarkable wartime record, sharing its maps, drawings, words, humor, and surprises…and the story of what it meant to discover a father preserved on the page. Join us for an intimate look at one extraordinary document, one Jewish American airman’s experience of war and captivity, and the unexpected ways a story can survive long after its author is gone. And because this is Happy Hour with a Historian, come hungry. MJM Executive Director and former caterer Dawn LaRochelle will be putting together a fabulous spread of light bites to accompany the evening, along with wine and other beverages. Sip, nosh, mingle, and then settle in for an up-close look at the most remarkable personal records of World War II we have ever encountered.