Three descendants of people interned here during the Second World War attended the book launch of Friend or Foe? held in Port Erin.

The book, produced by Rushen Heritge Trust, is the culminaton of four years’ research by the seven members of the trust’s team invstigating internment.

Each member has devoted different chapters and the result is a fascinating and full investigation of this extraordinary time from charting the logistics of organising the camp within days of 3,300 internees arriving at Port Erin to tracing those who happened to be born here during those turbulent years.

The book also investigates the lives of internees who included artists, opera singers, dancers, educationalists and economists.

Ruth Borchard studied economics at universities in Hamburg and Wisconsin.

She fled Germany and Nazism with her husband in 1938 and they settled in Surrey. She was interned with her daughter Katherine in 1940.

With no prospect of gainful employment, she developed the service exchange in which goods made by internees could be exchanged for tokens. She wrote about the exchange after leaving internment.

She later worked at the London School of Economics, was an art collector and author. Her daughter Katherine opened the trust’s exhibition on internment in 2015, but was unable to attend the book launch.

Katherine’s daughters Ruth and Emily Hallgarten did attend with Elsa Osman, one of Katherine’s granddaughters.

Elsa, a student at Edinburgh University, thanked everyone for attending and trust volunteer David Wertheim for showing them around. The trip included sites of the men’s internment camps in Douglas and Onchan, because their grandfather/great grandfather was interned in Douglas.

She said that she liked the island and that her visit had given her an insight into the place where her great grandparents had been interned.

’Friend or Foe?’ is available at local bookshops and outlets.