Gulag Gurls

Cassidy wrote, "Quick question. I, from time to time see on your blog and others WWI and WWII POWs dressed as women (femulating) and performing for other inmates. I always wondered where they got the clothing to do so. Could you offer an answer?"

I had the same question when I discovered all the photos of POW femulations.

I wondered if the Geneva Convention required every POW facility to be stocked with the latest in female clothing, wigs, makeup, etc., to permit the prisoners to dress en femme?

Did the POW camp commander ring up his favorite dress shop and order some frocks for the prisoners whenever they wanted to put on a show?

I asked those questions (with tongue in cheek), but I was curious because it seemed to me that these "girls" were not wearing homemade outfits put together from scraps of material that they scrounged up in camp. Rather they were dressed as fashionable women of the day would dress in outfits that came off the rack of women's clothier.

What's the real story? 

With nothing but time on their hands, the POWs would make their costumes using whatever scraps of material they could find, repurpose or barter from the prison guards. They even made high heel shoes! If you ever saw the film The Great Escape, it shows the prisoners making civilian clothing and Nazi uniforms (for their escape) the same way.

(Reminds me of the time before I had the courage to shop for women's clothing in person that I made a red satin micro-miniskirt from a scrap of material that my mother had left over from a sewing project.)

As they say, "Where there's a will, there's a way."

On the other hand, there were POWs who performed as female impersonators for the troops before imprisonment and brought their makeup and gowns along with them into captivity. Since wigs were a scarce commodity, some of the "girls" were permitted to grow their hair out!

(Sources: The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gilles; Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire by Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum)

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

British World War II POW Arthur Butler AKA Gloria d'Earie brought his female impersonator garb along with him to a Japanese prison camp.

The Great Escape

I love movies. One of my favorites is The Great Escape, a 1963 film about Allied prisoners of war planning and executing an escape from a German POW camp during World War II. Whereas other POW films like The Bridge on the River Kwai and La Grande Illusion include scenes in which the POWs crossdress to entertain their fellow POWs, The Great Escape does not.

Turns out that a photo I posted here years ago (see above) actually shows POWs crossdressing at the very camp depicted in The Great Escape.

An e-mail from Ben van Drogenbroek, author of The Camera Became My Passport Home: Stalag Luft 3, the Great Escape, the Forced March and the Liberation at Moosburg : The Memoirs of Charles Boyd Woehrle, tells all:

Hello Stana,

Sorry to catch you from out of the blue. I was googling "prisoner of war" when I came across your website.

The photo with the caption "American prisoners of war femulate in a German prison camp during World War II." was actually taken at the South Compound of Stalag Luft 3.

Stalag Luft 3 was a German prisoner of war camp solely for Allied Air Force officers. Stalag Luft 3 became well-known for two famous escapes, "The Wooden Horse Escape" and "The Great Escape."

The name of the play slipped my mind, but I can look it up.

I must say; your website is well worth visiting; well done!

All the best from the other side of the ocean.

Ben van Drogenbroek

Here are two additional photos from the same POW camp.

World War I POWs femulating in the 1937 French film La Grande Illusion.

Uncle Sam Wants You... To Wear A Dress

Years ago, when I began collecting images of femulators, I was surprised to discover that there was lots of femulating in the military, both in the military of the USA and other nations.

The military femulations fell into three categories:

- Prisoners of war femulating to entertain their fellow prisoners

- Sailors femulating during crossing-the-Equator ceremonies

- Personnel attached to military theatrical productions who femulated to entertain the troops

Which reminds me of an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in which Rob Petrie (Van Dyke's character) recalls being attached to Special Services in the Army. During that stint, he was the Special Services boxing champion. To attain that status, one of the soldiers he boxed against was a female impersonator.

But none of those categories explains the snapshots I have of one of my relatives in an Army camp in the Hawaiian Island during World War II wearing a grass skirt and a bra top.

During a recent Internet interrogation, I found an enlightening article, "Cross-Dressing in Military Theater" by Stephan Likosky, which provides a history of military femulating. The article is the last one on this page - scroll down past three-quarters of the page to find it.

By the way, according to the article, "Today, drag performances are no longer permitted by the United State Armed Services."

 German prisoners of war performing in an American prisoner camp during World War II.

American and British sailors femulating during crossing-the-Equator parties.

A British military troupe who performed en femme during World War II.

 

 

Wearing DailyLook.

lay down your arms and put on a dress

I did not serve in the military, so I am not familiar with prisoner of war (POW) camps (except what I have seen in films) and I am clueless on the topic of crossdressing POWs.

Does the Geneva Convention require that every POW facility be stocked with the latest in female clothing, wigs, makeup, etc., to permit the prisoners to dress en femme?

I ask that question (with tongue in cheek) because I have been collecting trans-related images for years and my collection includes many images of POWs in drag putting on stage shows.

These "girls" are not wearing homemade outfits put together from scraps of material that they scrounged up in camp; rather they are dressed as fashionable women of the day would dress in outfits that came off the rack of women's clothier.

Did the POW camp commander ring up his favorite dress shop and order some frocks for the prisoners whenever they wanted to put on a show?

What's the real story?

Please enlighten me if you have any information on this subject.

Meanwhile, enjoy the sample of images (above and below) of POWs en femme. (As usual, click on an image to magnify it.)

Up top is a photo of five German soldiers at an unknown location during an unknown war, but my guess is World War II.

Below we find a group of German soldiers incarcerated at Camp Carson, Colorado, in 1945.

Far below, is another group of POWs of unknown nationality at an unknown location during an unknown was, but my guess is British soldiers during World War I.