The Life of a Romanian WWI Prisoner of War: A War Journal

Readers today are watching the voices of those who endured the First and Second World Wars diminish or disappear, unheard, altogether. To preserve, illuminate, and share her great-grandfather’s memories for future generations, Emma Dirk has translated his over 100-year-old journal and compiled those entries reflecting what he had experienced during and directly after the First World War into this book.

In the late months of 1916, when he was only 23 years old, Dumitru Balaci was captured on Romania’s battlefield and, alongside tens of thousands of others, endured a gruelling journey aboard cattle trains to a concentration camp in Germany. Forced to live in horrible conditions and with little to no food, for months, he was shuffled among multiple labour camps in Germany and Austria, sometimes unaware of where he was. Despite this, his faith, spirit, and perseverance pushed him to not only survive but escape and find freedom in France, and, eventually, find his way home, back to his family in Romania around 1920-1921.

A compelling story of survival, resilience, and the extraordinary force of the human spirit during challenging times, The Life of a Romanian WWI Prisoner of War provides an intimate, poignant glimpse into the life of a Romanian prisoner of war and soldier.