Above: A guard tower looms over prisoners.

Above: Angelo Spinelli, Italian American and native New Yorker.

The exhibit of 92 photographs-taken under risk of death--will be shown from March 17 through May 16, 2003 at the museum's transitional residence at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 28 West 44th Street (17th Floor) in Manhattan. The photos were culled from 400 extraordinary shots, which constitute the largest collection of prisoner of war camp photographs in existence.

Angelo Spinelli, an Italian American and native New Yorker, is the only United States prisoner of war known to have taken photos while in captivity. Shot between 1943 and 1945, mostly in a camp near Furstenburg, Germany, the photos document the grim and mundane aspects of prison life, as well as the sometimes humorous ways prisoners learned to cope. Whether depicting the printing of a clandestine newspaper called "POW WOW," getting hair cuts, sharing rations or singing in Easter and Christmas choirs, these photos bring to life the rarely seen experiences of many Allied prisoners during World War II.

"Nowhere is the compelling story of life behind barbed wire more poignantly portrayed than in the photographs of Angelo Spinelli," says Fred Boyles, superintendent of Andersonville National Historical Site in Andersonville, Georgia, which holds the photos in the collection of its National Prisoner of War Museum. "The photographs provide invaluable insight into the monotony of camp life, the means of coping and each individual's yearning for freedom." Adds chief ranger Fred Sanchez: "The photographs an negatives are truly a national treasure. Their importance will be recognized and appreciated for generations to come."