Gallery: Terrorist Hostages' Belongings Reveal the Horrors of Captivity
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Before ISIS gave Nicholas Henin a toothbrush, they cut the bottom of it off so it couldn't be chiseled into a weapon. Henin, a French journalist, was held captive in Syria for ten months by Islamic extremists who later executed James Foley and other hostages and broadcast the videos to the world on YouTube.
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The chess set made by the group of Western hostages held in Northern Syria by IS (formerly ISIS).
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On rare occasions, Nicolas Henin was given a can of tuna or milk cream, though most often he ate canned luncheon meat while he was held for nearly a year by ISIS. Henin is a French national who was working as a journalist in Syria when he was captured.
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The burqa that Leila Kaleva wore during her nearly five months of captivity in Yemen by Al Qaeda.
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While Leila Kaleva was held hostage by an Al Qaeda in Yemen, she was given an Arabic exercise book for children and a composition book to practice in. Kaleva emphasized that though they are extremists, Al Qaeda's reputation for being against women's education is disproved by the fact that they wanted her to learn Arabic. She and her husband were held captive for four and a half months until the Finnish government apparently paid ransom for their release.
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Javier Espinosa, a Spanish journalist who was held by IS (formerly ISIS) in Syria for six months, was given this flashlight to share with other hostages while they were held in a totally dark room. They used it to eat without spilling and wasting their food and to play chess or read the Koran and jihadi propaganda literature they were given.
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Though he didn't have strength to write every day, Harald Galler, who was held hostage by a group that would later become affiliated with Al Qaeda, did manage a few drawings of the places that he and other hostages were held in southern Algeria. They often saw beautiful sunsets over the rocky ridges.
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The underarm of Nicolas Henin's jacket ripped when he was being beaten while being held hostage by ISIS for nearly a year. He said the worst beatings and torture didn't leave blood or scars.
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The plastic handcuffs that Javier Espinosa wore while he was a hostage of IS (formerly ISIS) in Syria. The Spanish journalist says he wasn't treated as badly as American hostages and others.
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While Harald Ickler and a group of other tourists were held hostage in the Sahara Desert in 2003 for 54 days, they passed around this book, *The Beach*, about a vacation gone wrong. Each person wrote their name on the inside cover as he or she took a turn reading the novel.
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For the 54 days that Harald Ickler was held captive in the Sahara Desert by an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, he ate every meal out of this bowl with this spoon. Most days, he and other hostages were given a thin soup of flour and water. In the morning it had sugar, in the middle of the day, salt, and in the afternoon, "Classic" as Ickler calls it, with neither salt nor sugar. One time the mujahideen who were holding his group killed a camel and they received a bit of meat. "That was like Christmas for us," said Ickler.
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While he was being held hostage for nearly a year, Nicolas Henin took a pair of trousers and turned them inside out and filled them with other clothes to make a pillow. Henin, a French national, was captured by ISIS while he was working as a journalist.
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A neolithic arrowhead that Wolfgang Ebner found in a cave somewhere in the Sahara Desert while he and his wife were held hostage by an Al Qaeda affiliated group for eight months. The Austrian government eventually paid their ransom.
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Wolfgang Ebner wrote out his last will and testament in his notebook while he was being held hostage by an Al Qaeda affiliated group. His wife was close to death several times after falling sick and Ebner feared for his life too.
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Wolfgang Ebner and his wife were kidnapped while on holiday in Tunisa in 2008. These were the "Arabic toothbrushes" they used while being held.
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Harald Ickler was wearing this tshirt when he was taken hostage by an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group in the Saharah desert in 2003. The shirt was originally grey, but turned brown and was soon covered with sweat and stains as he wore it every day during his 54-day captivity. He never washed it, and even more than a decade later, the shirt still retains a distinct odor.
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Wolfgang Ebner and his wife played cards endlessly with this well-worn deck during the eight months they were in captivity, held by an Al Qaeda affiliated group who snatched them in Tunisia.
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Nicolas Henin and the other captives he was held with would ask for medicine---pain killers and antidiarrhetics---as often as they could, because when they actually needed them it would take several days before their guards gave them any drugs.
