Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. Purpose-built prisoner-of-war camps appeared at Norman Cross in England in 1797 during the French Revolutionary Wars and HM Prison Dartmoor, constructed during the Napoleonic Wars, and they have been in use in all the main conflicts of the last 200 years. The main camps are used for marines, sailors, soldiers, and more recently, airmen of an enemy power who have been captured by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. Civilians, such as merchant mariners and war correspondents, have also been imprisoned in some conflicts. Per the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, later superseded by the Third Geneva Convention, such camps have been required to be open to inspection by representatives of a neutral power, but this hasn't always been consistently applied.
Detention of prisoners of war before the development of camps
Before the Peace of Westphalia, enemy fighters captured by belligerent forces were usually executed, enslaved, or held for ransom. This, coupled with the relatively small size of armies, meant there was little need for any form of camp to hold prisoners of war. The Peace of Westphalia, a series of treaties signed between May and October 1648 that ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, contained a provision that all prisoners should be released without ransom. This is generally considered to mark the point where captured enemy fighters would be reasonably treated before being released at the end of the conflict or under a parole not to take up arms. The practice of paroling enemy fighters had begun thousands of years earlier, at least as early as the time of Carthage but became normal practice in Europe from 1648 onwards. The consequent increase in the number of prisoners was to lead eventually to the development of the prisoner of war camps.Development of temporary camps
Following General John Burgoyne's surrender at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, several thousand British and German troops were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts. For various reasons, the Continental Congress desired to move them south. For this purpose, one of the congressmen offered his land outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. The remaining soldiers marched south in late 1778—arriving at the site in January 1779. Since the barracks were barely sufficient in construction, the officers were paroled to live as far away as Richmond and Staunton. The camp was never adequately provisioned, but the prisoners built a theater on the site. Hundreds escaped Albemarle Barracks because of the shortage of guards. As the British Army moved northward from the Carolinas in late 1780, the remaining prisoners were moved to Frederick, Maryland; Winchester, Virginia; and perhaps elsewhere. No remains of the encampment site are left.First purpose-built camp
The earliest known purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp was established by the Kingdom of Great Britain at Norman Cross, in 1797 to house the increasing number of prisoners from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The prison operated until 1814 and held between 3,300 and 6,272 men.American Civil War camps
Lacking a means for dealing with large numbers of captured troops early in the American Civil War, the Union and Confederate governments relied on the traditional European system of parole and exchange of prisoners. While awaiting exchange, prisoners were confined to permanent camps.Neither Union or Confederate prison camps were always well run, and it was common for prisoners to die of starvation or disease. It is estimated that about 56,000 soldiers died in prisons during the war; almost 10% of all Civil War fatalities. During a period of 14 months in Camp Sumter, located near Andersonville, Georgia, 13,000 of the 45,000 Union soldiers confined there died. At Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois, 10% of its Confederate prisoners died during one cold winter month; and the 25% death rate at Elmira Prison in New York State very nearly equaled that of Andersonville's.
Boer War
During the Second Boer War, the British government established prisoner-of-war camps and concentration camps. In total, six prisoner-of-war camps were erected in South Africa and around 31 in overseas British colonies to hold Boer prisoners of war. The majority of Boer prisoners of war were sent overseas. After an initial settling-in period, these prisoner-of-war camps were generally well administered.The number of concentration camps, all located in South Africa, was much higher and a total of 109 of these camps had been constructed by the end of the war - 45 camps for Boer civilians and 64 camps for black Africans. The vast majority of Boers held in the concentration camps were women and children. The concentration camps were generally poorly administered, the food rations were insufficient to maintain health, standards of hygiene were low, and overcrowding was chronic. Due to these conditions, thousands perished in the 109 concentration camps. Of the Boer women and children held in captivity, over 26,000 died during the war.
Boer War camps
World War I
The first international convention on prisoners of war was signed at the Hague Peace Conference of 1899. It was widened by the Hague Convention of 1907. The main combatant nations engaged in World War I abided by the convention and treatment of prisoners was generally good. The situation on the eastern front was significantly worse than the western front, with prisoners in Russia at risk from starvation and disease. In total during the war about eight million men were held in prisoner of war camps, with 2.5 million prisoners in German custody, 2.9 million held by the Russian Empire, and about 720,000 held by Britain and France.Permanent camps did not exist at the beginning of the war. The unexpectedly large number of prisoners captured in the first days of the war by the German army created an immediate problem. By September 1914, the German army had captured over 200,000 enemy combatants. These first prisoners were held in temporary camps until 1915, by which time the prisoner population had increased to 652,000 living in unsatisfactory conditions. In response, the government began constructing permanent camps both in Germany and the occupied territories. The number of prisoners increased significantly during the war, exceeding one million by August 1915 and 1,625,000 by August 1916, and reaching 2,415,000 by the end of the war.
Geneva Conference
The International Committee of the Red Cross held a conference in Geneva, Switzerland in September 1917. The conference addressed the war, and the Red Cross addressed the conditions that the civilians were living under, which resembled those of soldiers in prisoner of war camps, as well as "barbed wire disease" suffered by prisoners in France and Germany. It was agreed at the conference that the Red Cross would provide prisoners of war with mail, food parcels, clothes, and medical supplies and that prisoners in France and Germany suffering from "barbed wire disease" should be interned in Switzerland, a neutral country.A few countries were not on the same terms as Germany and Austria. For example, Hungary believed that harsh conditions would reduce the number of traitors.
The countries in the east continued their fight to help the Red Cross provide support to POWs. At the end of the war, a Franco-German agreement was made that both countries would exchange their prisoners, but the French kept a small number while the Germans released all French prisoners.
Krasnoyarsk
in Siberia, Russia, was used after the Russian defeat to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War, as a base for military camps to train for future wars. Conditions there were dire and the detainees could be conscripted for war while they lived in concentration camps and prisons. Over 50,000 camp tenants were used for transportation, agriculture, mining and machinery production.Throughout World War I, captured prisoners of war were sent to various camps including the one in Krasnoyarsk. There was a point where a large mix of nationalities was together in Krasnoyarsk which included Bulgarians, Czechs, Germans, and Poles. Many prisoners were nationalists, which led to violence within the camp. Militants would be forced to put down the instigators and keep the camp running.
Polish–Soviet War
From autumn 1920, thousands of captured Red Army soldiers and guards had been placed in the Tuchola internment camp, in Pomerania. These prisoners lived in dugouts, and many died of hunger, cold, and infectious diseases. According to historians Zbigniew Karpus and Waldemar Rezmer, up to 2000 prisoners died in the camp during its operation.In a joint work by Polish and Russian historians, Karpus and Rezmer estimate the total death toll in all Polish POW camps during the war at 16,000–17,000, while the Russian historian Matvejev estimates it at 18,000–20,000.
On the other side of the frontline about 20,000 out of about 51,000 Polish POWs died in Soviet and Lithuanian camps
While the conditions for Soviet prisoners were clearly exposed by the free press in Poland, no corresponding fact-finding about Soviet camps for Polish POWs could be expected from the tightly controlled Soviet press of the time. Available data shows many cases of mistreatment of Polish prisoners. There have been also cases of Polish POWs' being executed by the Soviet army, when no POW facilities were available.
World War II
The 1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War established certain provisions relative to the treatment of prisoners of war. One requirement was that POW camps were to be open to inspection by authorised representatives of a neutral power.- Article 10 required that POWs should be lodged in adequately heated and lighted buildings where conditions were the same as their own troops.
- Articles 27–32 detailed the conditions of labour. Enlisted ranks were required to perform whatever labour they were asked and able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the captor's war effort. Senior non-commissioned officers were required to work only in a supervisory role. Commissioned officers were unrequired to work, although they could volunteer. The work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal or potash mining, stone quarrying, or work in saw mills, breweries, factories, railway yards, and forests. POWs hired out to military and civilian contractors and were paid $.80 per day in scrip in U.S. camps. The workers were also supposed to get at least one day of rest per week.
- Article 76 ensured that POWs who died in captivity were to be honourably interred in marked graves.