Prisoners of War in Khan al-Shilan - 2nd Battalion Manchester Regiment

[lynedmonds]

'Away from the Western Front', which was originally a First World War Centenary project is now working on a new project entitled, ‘Khan al-Shilan’.

It is 101 years ago this week that POWs from the 'Manchester Column' were released from the prison, Khan al-Shilan in Najaf, Iraq. Since then, the building has had many uses and for a while it was neglected, but it has been restored and is now ‘Khan al-Shilan Najaf Heritage and 1920 Revolution Museum’.

During their time there, some of the soldiers inscribed the walls of their cells with written messages and drawings. The key goals of our project are to decipher and transcribe as many of these inscriptions as possible and to see if any can be linked to known prisoners. We hope you will find this of interest, and we would be very happy to receive any comments or additional information.

For further details of the project so far: https://awayfromthewesternfront.org/projects/khan-al-shilan/

I am keen to hear from descendants of the prisoners as I would like to add further photos to the website.

Kind regards

Lyn

Edited 22 October , 2021 by lynedmonds