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The first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp was constructed in England in 1779. It marked the inception of facilities specifically intended to house war captives during times of conflict. The majority of these camps were run to the guidelines of the Geneva Convention. Nonetheless, numerous camps gained notoriety for their atrocious mistreatment of prisoners and the abysmal living conditions they endured.
Indeed, these were places no soldier wanted to end up in. But which of these horrific hell-holes was the worst? Click through to discover the most notorious prisoner-of-war camps.
Norman Cross Prison in England was the world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp. Completed in 1797, it was built to hold prisoners of war from France and its allies during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. A memorial to the 1,770 prisoners who died at Norman Cross marks the site of the now-demolished facility.
French combatants captured during the Napoleonic Wars were also incarcerated at Dartmoor. In 1813, the prison started to receive American naval personnel taken prisoner during the War of 1812. In 1814, despite the end of hostilities, the British government refused to release the POWs. A riot ensued, resulting in the deaths of 271 detainees. They are buried in the grounds of the prison, which still functions today.
During the American Civil War, numerous soldiers from both sides were taken prisoner and confined in camps. Among the most infamous of these camps was Andersonville Prison, which was operated by the Confederacy in Georgia. Referred to as Camp Sumpter, it gained notoriety due to the dreadful conditions that led to the deaths of roughly 13,000 Union prisoners. These fatalities resulted from diseases, inadequate hygiene, lack of food, overcrowding, and exposure to the harsh weather. Today, the site is recognized as a historic place on the US National Registry.
Camp Douglas, situated in Chicago, was a notorious stockade during the Civil War. Serving as a Union Army establishment, it incarcerated Confederate soldiers, who experienced abysmal conditions leading to an alarmingly high mortality rate. By the war's culmination, the death toll of prisoners reached 4,275.
Elmira in New York was once a Union Army barracks transformed into a prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate soldiers. It earned the nickname "Hellmira" among the inmates due to the harsh living conditions. With a record number of rebels taken captive, nearly 3,000 prisoners lost their lives as a result of malnutrition, hypothermia, and the unsanitary environment.
The Boer War began in 1899, pitting the British Empire against the Boer republics. To handle the prisoners of war, the British set up six camps in South Africa and several others in British colonies abroad. In Capetown, there were two prisons: Green Point Camp No. 1 and Camp No. 2 (as shown in the picture). These camps functioned as transit points where POWs were housed before being sent overseas. The place was ruthlessly managed and the living conditions were very basic. Prisoners who refused to swear loyalty to the British monarchy had it even worse.
The Boer War started in the same year that the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 signed the first international convention on prisoners of war. However, when the First World War began, there were no permanent POW camps. This created a dilemma for German forces, who had already captured more than 200,000 enemy combatants by 1914. The image depicts a makeshift camp where 2,000 Russian prisoners of war, captured by the Germans in East Prussia, were held.
The Allied forces encountered a similar challenge of determining the location to gather and handle Axis prisoners. In this instance, stern German soldiers can be seen through the camera, standing behind barbed wire in a French prisoner-of-war camp.
Holzminden, a town in Germany, had a different kind of prison camp that opened in 1917. It accommodated British officers who were captured during the Great War. The camp was situated in a former cavalry barracks, while the German garrison resided in Kaserne B (pictured). Holzminden is famous for experiencing the largest POW escape during that time.
On July 23, 1918, a group of 29 officers managed to escape by utilizing a tunnel that had been under construction for approximately nine months. Out of these officers, ten were successful in returning to Britain. Among them were Lt. Cecil Blain, Captain David Gray, and Lt. Caspar Kennard as seen from left to right.
The Tuchola prisoner-of-war camp in northern Poland was built with the help of captive Russian soldiers. Managed by the German Empire, Tuchola had a distressing death toll between 1914 and 1918, with almost 4,000 prisoners dying from diseases. The victims were mainly Romanians, but also Russians. The primary cause of death was attributed to disease. From 1920 to 1921, the camp was overseen by Polish officials, and during this period, an additional 2,000 Russian prisoners perished due to starvation, inadequate living conditions, and contagious illnesses.
Finnish civil war prison camps were operated by the 'White' side (Civil Guard) of the conflict. Pictured in 1915 is a camp holding imprisoned members known as the 'Red Guards' (paramilitary units of the Finnish labor movement). A total of 12,000 to 14,000 Red Guard prisoners died in captivity.
During the Spanish civil war, General Franco set up various camps in Spain to detain Republican soldiers. As the Nationalists refused to acknowledge them as prisoners of war, the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, which Spain's King Alfonso XIII had signed and ratified ten years prior, did not extend its protections to them.
The 1929 Geneva Convention aimed to protect the rights of prisoners of war by allowing authorized representatives of a neutral power to inspect camps. However, this did not always happen in reality. While Germany ratified the Convention, Japan, although a signatory, chose not to do so. A photograph shows Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, visiting a camp for Russian prisoners.
Werner Drechsler (pictured on the left injured while disembarking USS Osmond Ingram in June 1943) was a German U-boat crewman who was recruited as a spy by US authorities and placed in Camp Papago Park, located outside Phoenix, Arizona. Drechsler was eventually exposed as an enemy agent by other prisoners and later found hung. Seven inmates were tried by a general court-martial and executed for the beating and hanging of their compatriot.
In December 1944, German prisoners of war executed a daring escape from Camp Papago Park. Using a tunnel, twenty-five inmates managed to bypass the perimeter and flee into the desert. Nevertheless, all the escapees were eventually recaptured.
Arguably the most famous of the Second World War prisoner-of-war camps, Stalag Luft III was the scene of the daring "Great Escape" of March 1944, when 76 Allied airmen tunneled their way out of the compound near the town of Sagan. Only three escapees made it to safety; 50 were executed on Hitler's orders. Seventeen captured escapees were returned to Stalag Luft III, while two others were sent to another POW camp and another four to a concentration camp.
Stalag IX-B, situated close to Bad Orb in Germany, functioned from 1939 to 1945 and accommodated detainees from at least eight nations. The Soviet Union prisoners endured severe hardships and by the spring of 1942, approximately 1,430 Red Army fighters had lost their lives. A memorial by the mass grave honors their final resting place.
Over 140,000 Allied soldiers were captured by the Japanese in World War II. Sadly, a third of them perished due to hunger, labor, discipline, or diseases. The photograph displays the Ohashi prisoner-of-war camp.
The Japanese routinely disregarded the terms outlined in the Geneva Convention and instead imposed their own regulations, subjecting prisoners to punishment without reason. The photograph depicts the scorched remains of a US soldier being buried in a grave. This soldier was among the 100+ American prisoners of war held captive at Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, who were ultimately burned alive by the Japanese in a POW camp.
In April 1942, Japanese captors compelled American and Filipino prisoners of war to walk 88 km (55 mi) from Bataan to a train heading to internment camps. Approximately 70,000 men endured this journey, yet brutal mistreatment and hunger claimed the lives of an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 individuals before reaching the end of the arduous trek.
The biggest prison escape in World War II took place at the Cowra prisoner-of-war camp in New South Wales, Australia. On August 5, 1944, over 1,000 Japanese detainees tried to break free from the camp. However, 231 Japanese soldiers lost their lives during the escape and subsequent pursuit.
Auschwitz, a well-known Nazi concentration camp, is widely acknowledged as the most infamous prison camp in history. Besides its association with the Holocaust, Auschwitz also served as a place where prisoners of war, specifically Red Army soldiers, were held. Following the start of their conflict with the Soviet Union in 1941, the Germans began transporting Soviet POWs to Auschwitz. The precise number of casualties among these prisoners remains uncertain.
The Korean War started five years following the conclusion of the Second World War. Illustrated in 1951, individuals from China and North Korea were captured at the United Nations Pusan prisoner-of-war camp. Detainees were notably impressed by the kind treatment they received from their captors.
A photograph captures a group of American soldiers taken as prisoners by Chinese communist forces during the Korean War.
During the early 1950s, Vietnam became embroiled in war. A photo from 1954 depicts French prisoners of war being led by Vietnamese soldiers to a camp in Dien Bien Phu. This location witnessed the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a significant conflict between the French colonial army and communist revolutionaries. Lasting from March 13 to May 7, 1954, this intense battle ultimately led to the downfall of French colonial authority in Indochina.
Approximately 65 American prisoners of war were detained at Son Toy prison camp, situated outside of Hanoi. In 1970, the camp gained attention when a US military force attempted to rescue the captured Americans, only to discover it deserted, as the inmates had been transferred months earlier.
Hoa Loa Prison, a notorious POW camp in Vietnam, was situated in downtown Hanoi. The facility imprisoned many American POWs, subjecting them to wretched circumstances such as inadequate food and unhygienic conditions. Over time, it gained the ironic moniker "Hanoi Hilton." One notable detainee was John McCain, who would go on to become a senator and the Republican presidential nominee in 2008.
Phu Quoc, like many other infamous prisoner-of-war facilities during the Vietnam War, was known for its mistreatment of detainees. It mainly held captured Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers. Reports from Red Cross officials who visited the site in 1969 and 1972 highlighted the inadequate food supplies, lack of proper medical care, and the frequency of brutal beatings suffered by the prisoners.
Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, served as a temporary detention facility operated by the US. There were allegations of maltreatment by the US authorities towards Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees, generating controversy. In 2002, the camp shut down and all prisoners were relocated to Camp Delta.
Manjaca Camp in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina housed Croatian and Bosnian Muslim prisoners during the Bosnian War. The camp was the site of a litany of human rights abuses, namely the regular and systematic beatings and killings of detainees, resulting in indictments and convictions by the ICTY United Nations tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
Sources: (The History Press) (American Battlefield Trust) (History on the Net) (U.S. News & World Report) (History)
See more: Fascinating photos of World War II
The most notorious prisoner-of-war camps in history
Notorious prisons that emerged from the horrors of war
LIFESTYLE History
The first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp was constructed in England in 1779. It marked the inception of facilities specifically intended to house war captives during times of conflict. The majority of these camps were run to the guidelines of the Geneva Convention. Nonetheless, numerous camps gained notoriety for their atrocious mistreatment of prisoners and the abysmal living conditions they endured.
Indeed, these were places no soldier wanted to end up in. But which of these horrific hell-holes was the worst? Click through to discover the most notorious prisoner-of-war camps.