Camp Survival

On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.

In the summer of 1942, 22-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto 40 miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labor camps in Hamburg, and Bergen Belsen. After liberation by the British in April 1945, she finally returned to Prague. Franci was known in her group as the Prague dress designer who lied to Dr. Mengele at an Auschwitz selection, saying she was an electrician.

Grace and Elijah were originally from France, living there because it wasn't so bad. Then came the invasion of France by the German soldiers, and Elijah and Grace were both knocked out, both of them unsure of what they remembered. Elijah tried to fight; he knew that judging from the prominent bruises, but he didn't fight enough to die, which was a good thing because he needed to be there for Grace. He was the only family that she had, and she was his.

Former Polish teenage piano prodigy Mosha Gebert is teaching when the Nazis come for her. They kill her student, but she is taken to Majdanek concentration camp. There, Commandant Josef Hanke spots her and recognises her as the pianist he fell in love with years earlier. Hanke demands that Mosha play ‘Ode to Joy’ for him, but she refuses. She will never play in such a horrific place – or for such an evil monster. So begins a battle of wills and repeated torture.

Special Agent Poppy McVie goes deep undercover and finds herself surrounded by the worst people on Earth—wealthy poachers who shoot bears for sport. Her mission is to dismantle the bloody game and drag its masterminds to justice. To earn their trust, she has to join the twisted fun and take aim at one of the majestic beasts herself. Even with the help of her handsome partner, Poppy has to fight to stay in character. But the cracks in her facade put the poachers on edge.

Parker Nelson can’t wait for summer camp. She’ll have fun and make amazing memories, far away from the bullies who made seventh grade unbearable. But then something terrible happens: The mean girl who made life a living nightmare is in Parker’s cabin. Soon all the other girls turn on Parker, too—no one wants to be her friend. Except Jenny. Jenny’s the only one who is willing to listen. The only one who understands. The only one who feels the same way Parker does: that there's a deep, dark secret to making friends and she’s the only one who doesn't know it.

Season 3 of Summer Camp of the Dead picks up right where season 2 ended. While the kids at the camp hurry to raise a defense against the approaching bandits, Bob and the rest race to reach the island of safety ahead of an approaching hoard of the hungry dead.

Bryan is the oldest youth Ranger in his troop and Martha is a Junior Counselor at a summer camp for young children. When the dead begin to rise these two young people and their friends find themselves thrown onto their own devices with no adults to help them and dozens of small children to care for. Can these teenagers overcome the tropes of their age and rise to the occasion at The Summer Camp of the Dead.

It was the summer of 1944 as liberating Allied forces surged toward Paris following the D-Day landings. For a large group of downed airmen being held in that city’s infamous Fresnes Prison, they were about to face evacuation into the blackest, bloody heart of Germany and experience the most acute evil of the war. Amid great secrecy, those 168 airmen—including several from Australia and New Zealand—were transported on a filthy, overcrowded nightmare train journey which ended at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, accompanied by orders for their execution.

The 25-year old Charles A. Lindbergh climbed into his single-engine monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, and took off for Paris, determined to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize promised to the first pilot to fly nonstop between New York and Paris. For the next 33 hours, as he navigated through storms across the perilous Atlantic Ocean, news of his attempt circled the globe, making him an international celebrity by the time he reached Paris.

The new nation, the United States of America, doubled overnight in size with the purchase of a vast tract of land west of the Mississippi River. The sitting president, Thomas Jefferson, negotiated a deal for the land with French ruler Napoleon. Now that America had all this new unexplored territory, Jefferson knew it was time to explore this new land and firmly place America's claim on this expansive wilderness. In 1803, Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery and named Meriwether Lewis as the leader.

As one of six children of British medical missionaries, John Hoyte grew up in China till age 13. During World War ll, he and his siblings, separated from their parents, were interned by the Japanese for nearly four years. In his 20s, he led a British expedition over the Alps with an elephant to investigate which way Hannibal and his army of 30,000 men and 37 elephants had taken in 218 BC. Later, he founded a start-up corporation in Silicon Valley and was an inventor and entrepreneur. With each surprising twist and turn of his journey, John has built a fulfilling life, infused with purpose and creativity.