Cross-Stitch: A Secret Statement of Defiance

Today, the Daily Mail has a great story of how a World War II British soldier, Major Alexis Casdagli, used cross-stitch to endure years in Nazi POW camps. The article includes some photographs of Major Casdagli's cross-stitch samplers from during his POW years. On the first sampler, the Major hid two repeating statements defying the Nazis in stitched Morse Code. In the four years of the Major's imprisonment, these secret statements were never deduced by his captors. Had the Nazis discovered what Major Casdagli wrote, the Major would never have made it home to England and his family at the end of the war, where he taught his son, Tony, how to cross-stitch. Tony still lives in London with his wife and continues to cross-stitch to this day.