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This is a list ofinternment and concentration camps, organized by country. In general, a camp or group of camps is designated to the country whose government was responsible for the establishment and/or operation of the camp regardless of the camp's location, but this principle can be, or it can appear to be, departed from in such cases as where a country's borders or name has changed or it was occupied by a foreign power.
Certain types of camps areexcluded from this list, particularly refugee camps operated or endorsed by theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Additionally,prisoner-of-war camps that do not also intern non-combatants or civilians are treated under a separate category.
During theDirty War which accompanied the1976–1983 military dictatorship, there were over 300 places throughout the country that served as secret detention centres, where people were interrogated, tortured, and killed.[1] Prisoners were often forced to hand and sign over property, in acts of individual, rather than official and systematic, corruption. Small children who were taken with their relatives, and babies born to female prisoners later killed, were frequently given for adoption to politically acceptable, often military, families. This is documented by a number of cases dating since the 1990s in which adopted children have identified their real families.[2][3]
These were relatively small secret detention centres rather than actual camps. The peak years were 1976–78. According to the report ofCONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) Report.[2][3] 8,960 were killed during the Dirty War. It states that "We have reason to believe that the true figure is much higher" which is due to the fact that by the time they published the report (in late 1984) the research wasn't fully accomplished;human rights organizations today consider 30,000 to be killed (disappeared). There was a total of 340 secret detention centres all over the country's territory.[4]
During World War I, 2,940 German and Austrian men were interned in ten different camps in Australia. Almost all of the men listed as being Austrians were from theCroatian coastal region ofDalmatia, then under Austrian rule.[citation needed]
In 1915 many of the smaller camps in Australia closed, with their inmates transferred to larger camps. The largest camp wasHolsworthy Internment Camp atHolsworthy.[5] Families of the interned men were placed in a camp nearCanberra.[citation needed]
During World War II, internment camps were established atOrange andHay inNew South Wales for ethnic Germans in Australia whose loyalty was suspect; German refugees fromNazism including the"Dunera boys"; and Italian immigrants, many were later transferred toTatura inVictoria (4,721 Italian immigrants were interned in Australia[6]).
TheDepartment of Immigration and Border Protection currently jointly manages two immigration centres onNauru andManus Islands with the host governments ofNauru andPapua New Guinea, for the indefinite detention of asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat. The claims of the asylum seekers to refugee status are processed in these centres. They are a part of the Australian government's policy that asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat will never be permitted to settle in Australia, even if they are found to be refugees, but may be settled in other countries. The clear intention of the Australian government's policy is to deter asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat. The great majority of boats come from Indonesia, which is used as a convenient jumping-off point for asylum seekers from other countries who want to reach Australia.
These centres are notUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-endorsed refugee camps,[7] and the operation of these facilities has causedcontroversy, such as allegations oftorture and other breaches ofhuman rights.[8]
Starting in 1914, 16 camps were built in the Austrian regions of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria.[citation needed] The majority of prisoners came from Russia, Italy, Serbia and Romania.[citation needed] Citizens deemed enemies of the state were displaced from their homes and sent to camps throughout theAustro-Hungarian Empire.[9] In addition ofInternierungslager (internment camp) for civilians of enemy states, Austria-Hungary incarcerated over one million Allied prisoners of war.[10]
In a UN report, 381 out of 677 alleged camps have been corroborated and verified, involving all warring factions during theBosnian War.[14][better source needed]
| Serb controlled | Croat controlled | Bosniak controlled |
|---|---|---|
|
During World War I,Bulgaria was part of theCentral Powers with Germany, Austria Hungary and Turkey. The Bulgarians established their largest prison camps in Sofia as well as smaller working camps across the kingdom but also military prison camps inBulgarian occupied Serbia.[20]
ThetotalitariancommunistKhmer Rouge régime established over 150 prisons for political opponents, of whichTuol Sleng is the best known.[23] According toBen Kiernan, "all but seven of the twenty thousand Tuol Sleng prisoners" were executed.[24]
In World War I, 8,579 male "aliens of enemy nationality" were interned, including 5,954Austro-Hungarians, including ethnicUkrainians,Croats, andSerbs. Many of these internees were used forforced labour in internment camps.
There were internment camps nearKananaskis, Alberta;Petawawa, Ontario;Hull, Quebec;[25]Minto, New Brunswick;[26] andAmherst, Nova Scotia.[27]
About 250 people worked as guards at the Amherst, Nova Scotia camp at Park and Hickman streets from April 1915 to September 1919. The prisoners, includingLeon Trotsky, cleared land around the experimental farm and built the pool in Dickey Park.[28]
During the World War II, the Canadian government interned people of German, Italian and Japanese ancestry, besides citizens of other origins it deemed dangerous to national security. This included bothfascists (including Canadians such asAdrien Arcand who had negotiated withHitler to obtain positions in the government of Canada once Canada was conquered),Montreal mayorCamillien Houde (for denouncingconscription) andunion organizers and other people deemed to be dangerousCommunists. Such internment was made legal by theDefence of Canada Regulations, passed 3 September 1939. Section 21 of which read:
European refugees who had managed to escape the Nazis and made it to Britain, were rounded up as "enemy aliens" in 1940. Many were interned on theIsle of Man, and 2,300 were sent to Canada, mostly Jews. They were transported on the same boats as German and Italian POWs.[29] They were sent to camps inNew Brunswick,Ontario andQuebec provinces where they were mixed in with Canadian fascists and other political prisoners, Nazi POWs, etc.[30]
During the Second World War, 850German Canadians were accused of being spies for theNazis, as well as subversives and saboteurs. The internees were given a chance by authorities to defend themselves; according to the transcripts of the appeal tribunals, internees and state officials debated conflicting concepts of citizenship.
Many German Canadians interned inCamp Petawawa were from a migration in 1876. They had arrived in a small area a year after a Polish migration landed inWilno, Ontario. Their hamlet, made up of farmers primarily, was called Germanicus, and is in the bush less than 10 miles (16 km) fromEganville,Ontario. Their farms (homesteads originally) were expropriated by the federal government for no compensation, and the men were imprisoned behind barbed wire in theAOAT camp. (TheFoymount Air Force Base nearCormac and Eganville was built on this expropriated land.) Notable was that not one of these homesteaders from 1876 or their descendants had ever visited Germany again after 1876, yet they were accused of being GermanNazi agents.
756 German sailors, mostly captured inEast Asia were sent from camps in India to Canada in June 1941 (Camp 33).[31]
By 19 April 1941, 61 prisoners had made a break for liberty from Canadian internment camps. The escapees included 28 German prisoners who escaped from the internment camp east ofPort Arthur, Ontario in April 1941.[32]
On 10 June 1940, Italy joined the war on the Axis side. After that,Italian Canadians were heavily scrutinized. Openly fascist organizations were deemed illegal while individuals with fascist inclinations were arrested, most often without warrants. Organizations seen as openly fascist also had properties confiscated without warrants. A provision under the CanadianWar Measures Act was immediately enacted by Prime MinisterWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King. Named theDefence of Canada Regulations, it allowed government authorities to take the necessary measures to protect the country from internal threats and enemies. The same afternoon that Italy joined the Axis powers, Italian consular and embassy officials were asked to leave as soon as physically possible. Canada, which was heavily involved in the war effort on the Allies' side, saw the Italian communities as a breeding ground of likely internal threats and a haven of conceivable spy networks helping the fascist Axis nations of Italy and Germany. Though many Italians were anti-fascist and no longer politically involved with their homeland, this did not stop 600–700 Italians from being sent to internment camps throughout Canada.[33][34][35][36]
The first of these Italian prisoners were sent to Camp Petawawa, in the Ottawa River Valley. By October 1940 the round up had already been completed. Italian Canadian Montrealer, Mario Duliani wrote "The City Without Women" about his life in the internment camp Petawawa during World War II; it is a personal account of the struggles of the time. Throughout the country Italians were investigated byRCMP officials who had a compiled list of Italian persons who were politically involved and deeply connected in the Italian communities. Most of the arrested individuals were from the Montreal and Toronto areas; they were pronouncedenemy aliens.[33][37]
After the war, resentment and suspicion of the Italian communities still lingered. Laval Fortier, commissioner for overseas immigration after the war, wrote: "The Italian South Peasant is not the type we are looking for in Canada. His standard of living, his way of life, even his civilization seem so different that I doubt if he could ever become an asset to our country".[38] Such remarks reflected a large proportion of the population who had negative views of the Italian communities. AGallup poll released in 1946 showed 73 percent of Québécois were against immigration, with 25 percent stating Italians were the group of people most wanted kept out — even though the pre-war years had proved that Italians were an asset to the Canadian economy and industry, as they accomplished critical jobs that were seen as very unappealing, such as laying track across rural and dangerous landscapes and building infrastructure in urban areas.[33][37]
During World War II, Canada interned residents of Japanese ancestry. Over 75% were Canadian nationals and they were vital in key areas of the economy, notably the fishery and also logging and berry farming. Exile took two forms: relocation centres for families and relatively well-off individuals who were a low security threat, and internment camps which were for single men, the less well-off, and those deemed to be a security risk. After the war, many did not return to the Coast because of bitter feelings as to their treatment, and fears of further hostility from non-Japanese citizens; of those that returned only about 25% regained confiscated property and businesses. Most remained in other parts of Canada, notably certain parts of theBritish Columbia Interior and in the neighbouring province of Alberta.
Internment camps, called "relocation centres", were atGreenwood,Kaslo,Lemon Creek,New Denver,Rosebery,Sandon,Slocan City, andTashme. Some were nearly-emptyghost towns when the internment began, others, like Kaslo and Greenwood, while less populous than in their boom years, were substantial communities.
A different kind of camp, known as a self-supporting centre, was found in other regions.Bridge River,Minto City,McGillivray Falls,East Lillooet, Taylor Lake were in theLillooet Country or nearby. Other than Taylor Lake, these were all called "Self-supporting centres", not internment camps. The first three listed were all in a mountainous area so physically isolated that fences and guards were not required as the only egress from that region was by rail or water. McGillivray Falls andTashme, on theCrowsnest Highway east ofHope, British Columbia, were just over the minimum 100 miles from the Coast required by the deportation order, though Tashme had direct road access over that distance, unlike McGillivray. Because of the isolation of the country immediately coast-wards from McGillivray, men from that camp were hired to work at a sawmill in what has since been namedDevine, after the mill's owner, which is within the 100-mile quarantine zone. Many of those in the East Lillooet camp were hired to work in town, or on farms nearby, particularly atFountain, while those at Minto and Minto Mine and those at Bridge River worked for the railway or the hydro company.[39][40][41][42][43]
Alderney in theChannel Islands was the only place in the British Isles where the Germans established concentration camps during theirOccupation of the Channel Islands. In January 1942, the occupying German forces established four camps, calledHelgoland,Norderney,Borkum andSylt (named after theGerman North Sea islands), where captive Russians and other East Europeans were used as slave labourers to build theAtlantic Wall defences on the island. Around 460[citation needed] prisoners died in the Alderney camps.
Some of the detention centers in Chile in this period:
| InSantiago, Chile | In theAtacama Desert | NearTierra Del Fuego | Other Areas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estadio Nacional de Chile (National Stadium) | Chacabuco | Dawson Island | Puchuncaví |
| Estadio Chile (nowVíctor Jara Stadium) | Pisagua Prison Camp | Ritoque | |
| Villa Grimaldi | Esmeralda (training ship) | ||
| Tres Álamos | Tejas Verdes | ||
| Venda Sexy (aka "La Discothèque") | |||
| Casa de José Domingo Cañas | |||
| Londres 38 | |||
| Cuartel Simón Bolívar |
Laogai (Chinese:劳改;pinyin:Láogǎi), the abbreviation forLáodòng Gǎizào (劳动改造), which means reform through labor, is acriminal justice system involving the use ofpenal labour andprison farms in thePeople's Republic of China (PRC).Láogǎi is different fromláojiào, orre-education through labor, which was the abolished administrative detention system for people who were not criminals but had committedminor offenses, and was intended to "reform offenders into law-abiding citizens".[47] Persons who were detained in thelaojiao were detained in facilities that were separate from those which comprised the general prison system of thelaogai. Both systems, however, were based onpenal labour. The system has been estimated to have caused tens of millions[48][49][50] of deaths and it has also been likened toslavery by its critics.[51][52][53] The memoirs ofHarry Wu describe his experience in reform-through-labor prisons from 1960 to 1979. Wu recounts his imprisonment for criticizing the government while he was in college and his release in 1979, after which he moved to the United States and eventually became an activist. Officials of theChinese Communist Party have argued that Wu far overstates the present role of Chineselabor camps and ignores the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the 1970s.[citation needed]
There are also accusations[by whom?] that Chinese labor-camps[54] produce goods which are often sold in foreign countries with the profits going to the PRC government. The products include everything from green tea to industrial engines to coal dug from mines.[55]
There have been reports ofFalun Gong practitioners being detained at theSujiatun Thrombosis Hospital, or at the "Sujiatun Concentration Camp". It has been alleged[by whom?] that Falun Gong practitioners are killed for their organs, which are then sold to medical facilities.[56] TheChinese government rejects these allegations.[57] TheUS State Department visited the alleged camp on two occasions, first unannounced, and found the allegations not credible.[58][59] Chinese dissident and executive director of theLaogai Research Foundation,Harry Wu, having sent his own investigators to the site, was unable to substantiate these claims, and he believed the reports were fabricated.[60]
As of 2018[update] at least 120,000 members of China'sMuslimUyghur minority were held in mass-detention camps, termed by Chinese authorities "re-education camps", which aim to change the political thinking of detainees, their identities and religious beliefs.[61][62] According toAmnesty International andHuman Rights Watch, as many as 1 million people have been detained in these camps,[63] which are located in theXinjiang region.[64] International reports state that as many as 3 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities may have been detained China's re-education camps in the Xinjiang region.[65]
An estimated 200,000–500,000Serbs, 30,000Croatian Jews and 30,000Roma were killed during theIndependent State of Croatia, including between 77,000 and 99,000 Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Jews and Roma killed in theJasenovac concentration camp.[66][67]
AfterMarshal Campos had failed to pacify theCuban rebellion, the Conservative government ofAntonio Cánovas del Castillo sent outValeriano Weyler. This selection met the approval of most Spaniards, who thought him the proper man to crush the rebellion. While serving as a Spanish general, he was called "Butcher Weyler" because hundreds of thousands of people died in hisconcentration camps.
He was madegovernor of Cuba with full powers to suppress the insurgency (rebellion was widespread in Cuba) and restore the island to political order and its sugar production to greater profitability. Initially, Weyler was greatly frustrated by the same factors that had made victory difficult for all generals of traditional standing armies fighting against an insurgency. While the Spanish troops marched in regulation and required substantial supplies, their opponents practiced hit-and-run tactics and lived off the land, blending in with the non-combatant population. He came to the same conclusions as his predecessors as well—that to win Cuba back for Spain, he would have to separate the rebels from the civilians by putting the latter in safe havens, protected by loyal Spanish troops. By the end of 1897, General Weyler had relocated more than 300,000 into such "reconcentration camps." Weyler learned this tactic from theAmerican Civil War campaign ofGeneral Sherman while assigned to the post of military attaché in the Spanish Embassy in Washington D.C..{Citation needed} However, many mistakenly believe him to be to the origin of such tactics after it was later used by the British in theSecond Boer War and later evolved into a designation to describe theconcentration camps of the 20th century regimes of Hitler and Stalin. Although he was successful moving vast numbers of people, he failed to provide for them adequately. Consequently, these areas became cesspools of hunger and disease, where many hundreds of thousands died.
Weyler's "reconcentration" policy had another important effect. Although it made Weyler's military objectives easier to accomplish, it had devastating political consequences. Although the Spanish Conservative government supported Weyler's tactics wholeheartedly, the Liberals denounced them vigorously for their toll on the Cuban civilian population. In the propaganda war waged in the United States, Cuban émigrés made much of Weyler's inhumanity to their countrymen and won the sympathy of broad groups of the U.S. population to their cause. He was nicknamed "the Butcher" Weyler by journalists likeWilliam Randolph Hearst.
Weyler's strategy also backfired militarily due to the rebellion in thePhilippines that required the redeployment by 1897 of some troops already in Cuba. When Prime MinisterAntonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in June, Weyler lost his principal supporter in Spain. He resigned his post in late 1897 and returned to Europe. He was replaced in Cuba by the more conciliatoryRamón Blanco y Erenas.
Military Units to Aid Production wereforced laborconcentration camps which were established byFidel Castro'scommunist government, from November 1965 to July 1968.
They were used to brainwash the Cuban population and force it to renounce alleged "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary" values. First, people were thrown into overcrowded prison cells which were located in police stations and later they were taken to secret police facilities, cinemas, stadiums, warehouses, and similar locations. They were photographed, fingerprinted and forced to sign confessions which declared that they were the "scum of society" in exchange for their temporary release until they were summoned to the concentration camps.[69] Those who refused to sign the confessions were physically and psychologically tortured.[69]
Beginning in November 1965, people who were already classified as the "scum of society" started to arrive in the concentration camps by train, bus, truck and other police and military vehicles.[69]
"Social deviants" such ashomosexuals, vagrants,Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious missionaries were imprisoned in these concentration camps, where they would be "reeducated".[70]
Penal work camps for the Czechoslovak Uranium Mines [cs] There was a large set of prisoner work camps modeled on the form of theGULAG after 1945, and officially from 1949 to 1961, which provided (for seriously reduced price) most of the uranium required for theSoviet atomic bomb project. Roughly 65,000 prisoners went through these camps, roughly half of them being political prisoners. Average life expectancy in the camps sunk to around 45 years, and in some plants (likeThe Red Tower of Death [cs]) most of the workers later died from radiation sickness.
Denmark received about 240,000 refugees from Germany and other countries after the war. They were put into camps guarded by the reestablished army. Contact between Danes and the refugees were very limited and strictly enforced. About 17,000 died in the camps due to injuries and illness resulting from their escape from Germany or poor camp conditions.[71] Known camps were
In theFinnish Civil War, the victorious White Army and German troops captured about 80,000 Red prisoners by the end of the war on 5 May 1918. Once the White terror subsided, a few thousand including mainly small children and women, were set free, leaving 74,000–76,000 prisoners. The largestprison camps wereSuomenlinna (an archipelago just offshore from the center ofHelsinki),Hämeenlinna,Lahti,Viipuri,Ekenäs,Riihimäki andTampere. The Senate made the decision to keep these prisoners detained until each person's guilt could be examined. A law for aTribunal of Treason was enacted on 29 May after a long dispute between the White army and the Senate of the proper trial method to adopt. The start of the heavy and slow process of trials was delayed further until 18 June 1918. The Tribunal did not meet all the standards of neutral justice, due to the mental atmosphere of White Finland after the war. Approximately 70,000 Reds were convicted, mainly for complicity to treason. Most of the sentences were lenient, however, and many got out on parole. 555 persons were sentenced to death, of whom 113 were executed. The trials revealed also that some innocent persons had been imprisoned.[74]
Combined with the severe food shortage, the mass imprisonment led to high mortality rates in the camps, and the catastrophe was compounded by a mentality of punishment, anger and indifference on the part of the victors. Many prisoners felt that they were abandoned also by their own leaders, who had fled to Russia. The condition of the prisoners had weakened rapidly during May, after food supplies had been disrupted during the Red Guards' retreat in April, and a high number of prisoners had been captured already during the first half of April in Tampere and Helsinki. As a consequence, 2,900 starved to death or died in June as a result of diseases caused by malnutrition andSpanish flu, 5,000 in July, 2,200 in August, and 1,000 in September. The mortality rate was highest in the Ekenäs camp at 34%, while in the others the rate varied between 5% and 20%. In total, between 11,000 and 13,500 Finns perished. The dead were buried in mass graves near the camps.[75] The majority of the prisoners were paroled or pardoned by the end of 1918 after the victory of the Western powers in World War I also caused a major change in the Finnish domestic political situation. There were 6,100 Red prisoners left at the end of the year,[76] 100 in 1921 (at the same time civil rights were given back to 40,000 prisoners) and in 1927 the last 50 prisoners were pardoned by the social democratic government led byVäinö Tanner. In 1973, the Finnish government paid reparations to 11,600 persons imprisoned in the camps after the civil war.[77]
When theFinnish Army during theSecond World War occupiedEast Karelia from1941–1944, which was inhabited by ethnically related FinnicKarelians (although it never had been a part of Finland—or before 1809 ofSwedish Finland), several concentration camps were set up for ethnicallyRussian civilians. The first camp was set up on 24 October 1941, inPetrozavodsk. The two largest groups were 6,000 Russian refugees and 3,000 inhabitants from the southern bank of River Svir forcibly evacuated because of the closeness of the front line. Around 4,000 of the prisoners perished due to malnourishment, 90% of them during the spring and summer 1942.[79] The ultimate goal was to move the Russian speaking population to German-occupied Russia in exchange for any Finnish population from these areas, and also help to watch civilians.
Population in the Finnish camps:
TheDevil's Island was a network of prisons inFrench Guiana that ran from 1852 to 1953 used to intern petty criminals and political prisoners in which up to 75% of the 80,000 interned perished.
During theFrench conquest of Algeria, which began in 1830 and was fullycompleted by 1903, the French used the camps to hold Arabs, Berbers and Turks they had forcibly removed from fertile areas of land, in order to replace them by primarily French, Spanish, and Maltese settlers.[80] The conquest led to the deaths of between 500,000 and 1 million of an estimated 3 million Algerians from famine, disease, and war.[81] HistorianBen Kiernan wrote on the conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830,"[82]
During theAlgerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the French military createdcentres de regroupements (regrouping centres), which were built settlements for forcibly displaced civilian populations, in order to separate them fromNational Liberation Front (FLN) guerilla combatants.[83] According to civil servantMichel Rocard, 1,000,000 Algerians were sent to regrouping camps (including children).[84]
In 1959, Michel Rocard denounced the appalling conditions of many of those camps in a report, leaked and published inLe Monde.[85] As a consequence the camps were modernized and became part of a large rural renovation program calledLes Milles Villages (One Thousand Villages).[86]
After the end ofSpanish Civil War, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies.[87] Hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad,especially to France andMexico.[88] On the other side of thePyrenees,refugees were confined ininternment camps of theFrench Third Republic, such as theRieucros Camp,Camp de Rivesaltes,Camp Gurs orCamp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions (mostly soldiers from theDurruti Column[89]). The 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs were divided into four categories (Brigadists, pilots,Gudaris and ordinary Spaniards). TheGudaris (Basques) and the pilots easily found local backers and jobs, and were allowed to quit the camp, but the farmers and ordinary people, who could not find relations in France, were encouraged by the Third Republic, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities inIrún. From there they were transferred to theMiranda de Ebro camp for "purification".
After the proclamation by MarshalPhilippe Pétain of theVichy regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and theFrench police attempted to round-up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirables", they were sent to theDrancy internment camp before being deported toNazi Germany. About 5,000 Spaniards thus died inMauthausen concentration camp[90]
DuringWorld War II, The FrenchVichy government ran what were called "detention camps" such as the one atDrancy. Camps also existed in thePyrenees on the border with pro-Nazi Spain, among themCamp de Rivesaltes,Camp du Récébédou,Camp Gurs andCamp Vernet. From these, the French cooperated in deporting about 73,000 Jews toNazi Germany.
In addition, in areas which Germany formally annexed from France, such asAlsace-Lorraine, concentration camps were built, the largest beingNatzweiler-Struthof.
The Vichy French also ran camps in North and West Africa, and possiblyFrench Somaliland andMadagascar. The following are the locations of concentration camps, POW camps, and internment camps in (Vichy) West and (Vichy) North Africa:
The camps were located at:
West Africa:
North Africa:
Also camps connected to theLaconia incident:
The following camps which are under investigation:
The camps atConakry,Timbuctoo, andKankan had no running water, no electricity, no gas, no electric light, no sewers, no toilets and no baths. The prisoners (mainly British andNorwegian) were housed in native accommodation—mud huts and houses, and a tractor shed. The Vichy French authorities in West Africa called these camps "concentration camps".
Between 1904 and 1908, following the German suppression of theHerero andNama in theHerero and Namaqua genocide, survivors were interned[91] at the following locations inGerman South-West Africa (nowNamibia):
InWorld War I male (and some female) civilian nationals of theAllies caught by the outbreak of war on the territory of the Germany were interned. The camps (Internierungslager) included those at:
On 30 January 1933Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of theWeimar Republic's weak coalition government. Although theNazi party (NSDAP) was in a minority, Hitler and his associates quickly took control of the country.[95] Within days the firstconcentration camp (Konzentrationslager), atDachau,Nazi Germany, was built to hold persons considered dangerous by the Nazi administration—these included suspected communists, labor union activists, liberal politicians and even pastors. This camp became the model for all laterNazi concentration camps. It was quickly followed byOranienburg-Sachsenhausen which became a facility for the training ofSS-Death's Head officers in the operation of concentration camps.
Theodor Eicke, commandant of the Dachau camp, was appointed Inspector of Concentration Camps byHeinrich Himmler on 4 July 1934. By 1934 there were eight major institutions. This started the second phase of development. All smaller detention camps were consolidated into six major camps: Dachau, Sachsenhausen,Buchenwald,Flossenburg, and after theannexation of Austria in 1938,Mauthausen; finally in 1939Ravensbrück (for women). The pajama type blue-striped uniforms were introduced for inmates as well as the practice of tattooing the prisoner's number on his fore-arm. Eicke started the practice of farming out prisoners as slave-labor in German industry, with sub-camps orArbeitskommandos to house them. The use of common criminals asKapo, to brutalize and assist in the handling of prisoners, was instituted at this time. In November 1938 the massive arrests of German Jews started, with most of them being immediately sent to the concentration camps, where they were separated from other prisoners and subjected to even harsher treatment.
The third phase started after the occupation of Poland in 1939. In the first few months Polish intellectuals were detained, including nearly the entire staff ofCracow University arrested in November 1939.[96]Auschwitz-I andStutthof concentration camp were built to house them and other political prisoners. Large numbers were executed or died from the brutal treatment and disease. After the occupation of Belgium, France and Netherlands in 1940,Natzweiler-Struthof,Gross Rosen andFort Breendonk, in addition to a number of smaller camps, were set up to house intellectuals and political prisoners from those countries who had not already been executed.[97] Many of these intellectuals were held first inGestapo prisons, and those who were not executed immediately after interrogation were sent on to the concentration camps.
Initially, Jews in the occupied countries were interned either in other KZ, but predominantly inGhettos that were walled off parts of cities. All the Jews in western Poland (annexed into the Reich) were transported to ghettos in theGeneral Government. Jews were used for labour in industries, but usually transported to work then returned to the KZ or the ghetto at night. Although these ghettoes were not intended to be extermination camps, and there was no official policy to kill people, thousands died due to hunger, disease and extreme conditions. In occupied Czechoslovakia,Lety concentration camp was constructed to holdRomani people fromBohemia and Moravia. Following the Nazi advance into the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942, camps were set up in Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which consisted ofJanowska concentration camp,Salaspils camp,Ninth Fort andVaivara concentration camp. During this period, Jewish soldiers and civilians were systematically executed by theEinsatzgruppen of the S.S. that followed the front-line troops. At theWannsee Conference on 20 January 1942 the "Final Solution" was decreed to exterminate all of the remaining Jews in Europe,Heydrich stated that there were still 11 million to be eliminated.[98] To accomplish this specialVernichtungslager (extermination camps) were organized. The first wasChełmno in which 152,000, mainly from theŁódź ghetto, were killed. The method for carrying out mass murder was tested and perfected here. During 1942 and 1943 further campsAuschwitz-Birkenau II, part ofMajdanek,Treblinka,Bełżec andSobibor were built for this purpose. Jews from other concentration camps, and from the ghettos, were transported to them from all over occupied Europe. In these six camps alone, an estimated 3.1 million Jews were killed in gas chambers and the bodies burned in massive crematoria. The Nazis realized that this was a criminal act[citation needed] and the action was shrouded in secrecy. The extermination camps were destroyed in 1944 and early 1945 and buried. However the Soviet armies overran Auschwitz and Majdanek before the evidence could be totally destroyed.
Another category of internment camp in Nazi Germany was theLabor camp (Arbeitslager). They housed civilians from the occupied countries that were being used to work in industry, on the farms, in quarries, in mines and on the railroads. Approximately 12,000,000 forced laborers, most of whom wereEastern Europeans, were enslaved in the German war economy inside theNazi Germany.[99][100] The workers were mostly young and taken from the occupied countries, predominantly eastern Europe, but also many French and Italian. They were sometimes taken willingly, more frequently as a result oflapanka in Polish, orrafle in French language, in which people were collected on the street or in their home by police drives. However, for often very minor infractions of the rules, workers were imprisoned in specialArbeitserziehungslager,German forworker re-education camp (abbreviated to AEL and sometimes referred to asStraflager).[101] These punishment camps were operated by theGestapo and many of the inmates were executed or died from the brutal treatment.
Finally there was one category of internment camp, calledIlag in which Allied (mainly British and American) civilians were held. These civilians had been caught behind front lines by the rapid advance of the German armies, or the sudden entry of the United States into the war. In these camps the Germans abided by the rules of theThird Geneva Convention. Deaths resulted from sickness or simply old age.
After World War II, internment camps were used by the Allied occupying forces to hold suspected Nazis, usually using the facilities of previous Nazi camps. They were all closed down by 1949. InEast Germany the communist government used prison camps to hold political prisoners, opponents of the communist regime or suspected Nazi collaborators.
During the Second World War the Japanese, during their occupation of Hong Kong, interned enemy nationals (mostly British, Canadian, American and Dutch), in several internment camps in Hong Kong. Camps existed at:
During both World Wars the British interned enemy nationals (mostly Germans). In 1939 this also included refugees from the Nazis as well as Germans who had acquired British citizenship, in India. Camps existed at:
Most internees were deported late 1946. Germans shipped to Hamburg were sent to the formerNeuengamme concentration camp for de-Nazification.[31][103]
During theSino-Indian War in 1962, the Indian governmentinterned and incarcerated 3000 Chinese-Indian civilians in the desertinternment camp inDeoli,Rajasthan,[104][105] built by the colonial authorities in 1942 as aPOW camp for Japanese, German, and Italianprisoners of war during the Second World War. The Indian government has not apologised or offered compensation to the internees as of 2020.[106][107]
HMS Argenta, during the 1920s, was a vessel used by the British government as a military base andprison ship to holdIrish Republicans as part of theirinternment strategy.[108]
By February 1923, under the1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men onArgenta, which was moored inBelfast Lough. This was supplemented with internment at other land-based sites such asLarneworkhouse,Belfast Prison andDerry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouse held 542 men without trial at the highest internment population level, during June 1923.[108]
Conditions on the prison shipArgenta were "unbelievable", says author Denise Kleinrichert who penned the hidden history of the 1920s "floating gulag".
Cloistered below decks in cages which held 50 internees each, the prisoners were forced to use broken toilets which overflowed frequently into their communal area. Deprived of tables, the already weakened men ate off the contaminated floor, frequently succumbing to disease as a result.
Courtesy of author Denise Kleinrichert's lobbying efforts, the files of all the internees—most of them named in an appendix to her book—are now available for viewing at thePublic Record Office of Northern Ireland.[citation needed]
During World War II, known inIreland asthe "Emergency", "K-Lines" was the part of theCurragh Camp used as an internment camp. It was used to house German soldiers, mainly navy personnel stranded in neutral Ireland. A separate section was created for Allied military, mostly British soldiers, who entered Irish territory in violation of the neutrality policy.No.1 Internment camp, that had been built by the British pre-1922, heldrepublicans who had a suspected link to the IRA.[109]
Later in the war,Gormanston Camp, nearBalbriggan, was used to house eleven Allied airmen from operational flights, but eight were released in June 1944; three Germans were kept there for a short period in 1945.[110]
| Name of the camp | Date of | Estimated number of | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Establishment | Liberation | Prisoners | Deaths | |
| HMS Argenta nearBelfast Lough, Northern Ireland | 1920 | 1925 | 265 | Unknown. Some fromhunger strikes |
| Curragh Camp ("No.1") nearThe Curragh,County Kildare,Ireland | 1939 | 1945 | - | - |
| Gormanston Camp nearBalbriggan, Ireland | 1939 | 1945 | 14 | - |
During World War I the United Kingdom governmentinterned male citizens of theCentral Powers, principally Germany,Austria-Hungary andOttoman Turkey in thiscrown dependency.[111] They were held mainly in internment camps atKnockaloe, close toPeel, and a smaller one nearDouglas.
During World War II theIsle of Man was used as the primary site for the internment of civilian enemy aliens, both male and female. The camps were predominantly incommandeered hotels and boarding houses in seaside towns on the island. Around the camps for males, barbed wire fences were erected and military guard was brought over from England. The low-risk internees were, however, allowed to work on farms on the island and to go on excursions such as for walks or to swim in the sea. The camps were in operation from 27 May 1940 to 5 September 1945.[112]The largest recorded number of internees on the island was roughly 14,000, reached in August 1940.[113]
There were ten camps on the island:
| Name of the camp | Date of establishment | Date of liberation | Estimated number of | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prisoners | Deaths | |||
| Baranello nearCampobasso | ||||
| Campagna nearSalerno | 15 June 1940 | 19 September 1943 | ||
| Casoli nearChieti | July 1940 | September 1943 | ||
| Chiesanuova nearPadua | June 1942 | |||
| Cremona | ||||
| Ferramonti di Tarsia nearCosenza | Summer 1940 | 4 September 1943 | 3,800 | |
| Finale Emila nearModena | ||||
| Giado | ||||
| Gonars nearPalmanova | March 1942 | 8 September 1943 | 7,000 | 453; >500 |
| Lipari | ||||
| Malo nearVenice | ||||
| Molat | ||||
| Monigo nearTreviso | June 1942 | |||
| Montechiarugolo nearParma | ||||
| Ponza | ||||
| Potenza | ||||
| Rab[114] (on the island ofRab) | July 1942 | 11 September 1943 | 15,000 | 2,000 |
| Renicci di Anghiari, nearArezzo | October 1942 | |||
| Risiera di San Sabba,Trieste | 1943 | 1945 | 3000-5000 | |
| Sepino nearCampobasso | ||||
| Treviso | ||||
| Urbisaglia | ||||
| Vestone | ||||
| Vinchiaturo, near Campobasso | ||||
| Visco, near Palmanova | Winter 1942 | |||
Israel has maintained concentration camps since itsoccupation of South Lebanon until the present day, holding Palestinian and Lebanese POWs, journalists, and civilians. The IDF used extreme methods of torture such as rape, electrocuting the penises of prisoners, and more, though Israel denies involvements in Khiam detention center; it has blamed its proxies in South Lebanon,SLA, for the operation of the camp.[115] Most notably:
On July 7th 2025, Israeli defense ministerIsrael Katz has announced the creation of an enclosure within theGaza Strip, intended for the concentration of 600 thousand Gazans at first, and eventually the entirety population of Gaza.[116] The announced plan was described as a concentration camp by Israeli historianAmos Goldberg.[117]
Japan conquered south-east Asia in a series of victorious campaigns over a few months from December 1941. By March 1942 many civilians, particularly westerners in the region's European colonies, found themselves behind enemy lines and were subsequently interned by the Japanese.
The nature of civilian internment varied from region to region. Some civilians were interned soon after invasion; in other areas the process occurred over many months. In total, approximately 130,000 Allied civilians were interned by the Japanese during this period of occupation. The exact number of internees will never be known as records were often lost, destroyed, or simply not kept.
The backgrounds of the internees were diverse. There was a large proportion of Dutch from theDutch East Indies, but they also included Americans, British, and Australians. They included missionaries and their families, colonial administrators, and business people. Many had been living in the colonies for decades. Single women had often been nuns, missionaries, doctors, teachers and nurses.
Civilians interned by the Japanese were treated marginally better than the prisoners of war, but their death rates were the same. Although they had to work to run their own camps, few were made to labour on construction projects. The Japanese devised no consistent policies or guidelines to regulate the treatment of the civilians. Camp conditions and the treatment of internees varied from camp to camp. The general experience, however, was one of malnutrition, disease, and varying degrees of harsh discipline and brutality from the Japanese guards. SomeDutch women were forced intosexual slavery.[118][119]
The camps varied in size from four people held at Pangkalpinang in Sumatra to the 14,000 held inTjihapit in Java. Some were segregated according to gender or race, there were also many camps of mixed gender. Some internees were held at the same camp for the duration of the war, and others were moved about. The buildings used to house internees were generally whatever was available, including schools, warehouses, universities, hospitals, and prisons.
Organisation of the internment camps varied by location. The Japanese administered some camps directly; others were administered by local authorities under Japanese control. Korean POWs of the Japanese were also used as camp guards. Some of the camps were left for the internees to self-govern. In the mixed and male camps, management often fell to the men who were experienced in administration before their internment. In the women's camps the leaders tended to be the women who had held a profession prior to internment. Boys over the age of ten were generally considered to be men by the Japanese and were often separated from their mothers to live and work in male camps.
One of the most famous concentration camps operated by the Japanese during World War II was at theUniversity of Santo Tomas inManila, the Philippines, theSanto Tomas Internment Camp. TheDominican university was expropriated by the Japanese at the beginning of the occupation, and was used to house mostly American civilians, but also British subjects, for the duration of the war. There, men, women and children suffered from malnutrition and poor sanitation. The camp was liberated in 1945.
The liberation of the camps was not a uniform process. Many camps were liberated as the forces were recapturing territory. For other internees, freedom occurred many months after the surrender of the Japanese, and in the Dutch East Indies, liberated internees faced the uncertainty of theIndonesian War of Independence.
Civilian internees were generally disregarded in official histories, and few received formal recognition. Ironically, however, civilian internees have become the subject of several influential books and films.Agnes Newton Keith's account of internment onBerhala Island inSandakan Harbour andBatu Lintang camp, Kuching,Three Came Home (1947), was one of the first of the memoirs. More recent publications include Jeanne Tuttle and Jolanthe Zelling's "Mammie's Journal of My Childhood" (2005); Shirley Fenton-Huie'sThe Forgotten Ones (1992) and Jan Ruff O'Herne'sFifty Years of Silence (1997). Nevil Shute's novelA Town Like Alice was filmed in 1956, and J. G. Ballard'sEmpire of the Sun in 1987. Other films and television dramas have includedTenko andParadise Road.[120][121][122]
During the 1980s,South Korea had multiple internment camps, including theBrothers Home, which housed thousands of prisoners inBusan.[123]
The history ofLibya as an Italian colony started in the 1910s and it lasted until February 1947, whenItaly officially lost all of the colonies of the formerItalian Empire.
Fighting intensified after the accession to power in Italy of the dictatorBenito Mussolini and King Idris fled Libya for the safety ofEgypt in 1922. From 1922 to 1928, Italian forces under GeneralPietro Badoglio waged a punitive pacification campaign. Badoglio's successor in the field, MarshalRodolfo Graziani (known as 'The Butcher of Fezzan'), accepted the commission from Mussolini on the condition that he be allowed to crush the Libyan resistance unencumbered by the restraints of either Italian or international law. Reportedly, Mussolini immediately agreed and Graziani intensified theoppression. The Libyans continued to defend themselves, with the strongest voices of dissent coming from the Cyrenaica.Omar Mukhtar, aSenussi sheikh, became the leader of the uprising.
Soon afterwards, the colonial administration began the wholesale deportation of the people of Cyrenaica to deny the rebels the support of the local population. The forced migration of more than 100,000 people ended in concentration camps in Suluq- ALa byer andAl Agheila where tens of thousands died in squalid conditions. It is estimated (by Arab historians) that the number of Libyans who died – killed either through combat or mainly through starvation, execution and disease – is at a minimum of 80,000 or even up to one third of the Cyrenaican population.[124]
During WW2 the US pressured Mexico to deport Japanese Mexicans to the US for internment and when Mexico refused, pressured Mexico to displace and intern them.[125][126] One such camp was located inTemixco, Morelos. Today it is a popular swimming resort.
In March 2025, a group looking for missing persons in Mexico found over 200 pairs of shoes and three clandestine crematoriums in a ranch just outside of Teuchitlán, Jalisco. The ranch was used by theJalisco New Generation Cartel as a recruitment center and extermination camp.[127]
The fort on the island ofMamula was converted into aconcentration camp by thefascist forces ofBenito Mussolini'sKingdom of Italy.
During the 1991 to 1995Croatian War of Independence, theYugoslav People's Army organized theMorinj camp nearKotor,Montenegro.
During World War I, all foreign soldiers and ship crews that illegally entered the neutral Netherlands were interned in a specific camp based on their nationality (to avoid conflict). By far the largest camp was the one for British sailors and soldiers inGroningen. Unlike thePrisoners of War in the neighbouring countries at the time, Dutch prisoners had plenty of food, and tradesmen often came to the camp with a wide range of goods. The interned were paid a certain amount of compensation money by the Dutch authorities on top of any British aid that was channeled to them through the Dutch government. One prisoner later commented: "... we were quite well off, and the local people were very good to us."[128]
After a revolt in 1926 in theDutch East Indies, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in what then was calledNetherlands New Guinea, in the very remote jungle atBoven-Digoel (Upper Digul).[129] More camps were established for supposed German sympathizers at the start of World War II, including one atOnrust Island and one inNgawi Regency. InSurinam, they also built camps for German nationals and German sympathizers, including one atJodensavanne and one atCopieweg.
Just before World War II engulfed the Netherlands, a camp was built in 1939 atWesterbork by theDutch government for interning Jewish refugees who had fledNazi Germany. During the German occupationthis camp was used as a transit camp for Dutch Jews eventually deported toextermination camps in the East.Amersfoort (1941–1945) (in German:Polizeiliches Durchgangslager) was also a transit camp. TheHerzogenbusch camp (1943–1944, known asKamp Vught because of its location in that town) was a concentration camp, the only one in Western Europe outside Germany set up as well as run by theSS.[129]
Other camps wereCamp Schoorl near Schoorl,Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel andCamp Erika near Ommen. Before theShoah began, some two dozen labor camps for Jewish men were operated fulfilling an order of the German occupiers. In the Dutch East Indies, after the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans in Europe started on 15 May 1940, Germans living in the Indies were rounded up and interned there. Almost all camps also had field offices for forced labor. In the cases of Vught as well as Amersfoort, there were work details forPhilips factories, often under relatively favourable circumstances. Also, the huge construction activities for the 30 German airfields in the Netherlands relied partly upon labour from camps.[129]
After the war, the Dutch government launchedOperation Black Tulip and started to gather the civil population of German background in concentration camps near the German border, especiallyNijmegen, in order to deport them from the country. In total around 15% of the German population in the Netherlands was deported.
Numerous improvised and official camps were set up after the war, to keep Dutch who were suspected of collaboration with the Germans. Kamp Westerbork at one point housed some Jews as well as suspected collaborators and Germans. In these camps, a history of maltreatment by the guards, sometimes leading to death, has been collected.[129]
During theIndonesian National Revolution, the war between the Netherland and Indonesia after World War II, the Dutch once again set up internment camps on territory they controlled in Indonesia, to detain Indonesian nationalists and captured members of the Indonesian armed forces.
In World War I German civilians living in New Zealand were interned in camps onMotuihe andSomes Islands. German, Italian and Japanese civilians were interned in World War II.
During World War II, theBeisfjord massacre took place at the "No. 1 camp Beisfjord" (Lager I Beisfjord).[130]
Concentration camps came into being inNorth Korea in the wake of the country's liberation fromJapanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Those persons considered "adversary class forces", such as landholders, Japanese collaborators, religious devotees and the families of people who migrated to theSouth, were rounded up and detained in large facilities. Additional camps were later established in the late 1950s and 1960s in order to incarcerate the political victims of power struggles along with their families as well as overseas Koreans who migrated to the North. Later, the number of camps saw a marked increase with the cementing of theKim Il Sung dictatorship and theKim Jong Il succession. About a dozen concentration camps were in operation until the early 1990s, but some of them were closed and merged into the remaining six camps for the purpose of maintaining better secrecy and control.[131]
North Korea is known to operate six concentration camps, currently accommodating around 200,000 prisoners. These camps, officially calledKwan-li-so (Korean for "control and management center"), are large political penal-labor colonies in secluded mountain valleys of central and northeastern North Korea.[132][133] Once condemned as political criminals in North Korea, the defendants and three generations of their families (including children and old people) are incarcerated in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact. Prisoners reportedly work 14-hour days at hard labor and they are also forced to undergo ideological re-education. Starvation, torture and disease are commonplace.[134] Political criminals invariably receive life sentences.[135]
| Concentration camps in operation | Area | Prisoners |
|---|---|---|
| Kwan-li-so No. 14 Kaechon | 155 km2 (60 mi2) | 15,000 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 15 Yodok | 378 km2 (146 mi2) | 46,500 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 16 Hwasong | 549 km2 (212 mi2) | 10,000 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 18 Pukchang | 73 km2 (28 mi2) | 50,000 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 22 Hoeryong | 225 km2 (87 mi2) | 50,000 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 25 Chongjin | 0.25 km2 (0.1 mi2) | 3,000+ |
| Former concentration camps | Date closed |
|---|---|
| Kwan-li-so No. 11 Kyongsong | October 1989 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 12 Onsong | May 1987 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 13 Chongsong | December 1990 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 26 Hwachon | January 1991 |
| Kwan-li-so No. 27 Chonma | November 1990 |
Kang Chol-hwan is a former prisoner ofYodok concentration camp and has written a book (The Aquariums of Pyongyang) about his time in the camp.[136]Shin Dong-hyuk is the only person known to have escaped fromKaechon internment camp and gave an account of his time in the camp.[137]
Concentration camps known asDeir ez-Zor camps operated in the heart of the Syrian desert during 1915–1916, where many thousands of Armenian refugees were forced into death marches during theArmenian genocide. The United States vice-consul in Aleppo,Jesse B. Jackson, estimated that Armenian refugees, as far east as Deir ez-Zor and south of Damascus, numbered 150,000, all of whom were virtually destitute.[138]
Shortly before his absolute 26-year rule ofParaguay, in 1813 Dr.José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, thenvice-consul of Paraguay, ordered the construction of the concentration camp ofTevego, situated on the Bolivian frontier bordering theChaco to the west, and a marsh to the east.[139] It was guarded by a squadron ofmulatto lancers, but was unable to fend off constant attacks from Indians, leading to its eventual abandonment in 1823.[140]
Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland existed during 1919–1924. It is estimated between 16,000 and 20,000 Soviet soldiers held in the Polish POW camps died, out of the total of 80,000 to 85,000 prisoners.[141]
From 1934 to 1939 the government ofPoland establishedBereza Kartuska Prison for the internment of political opponents,Ukrainian nationalists andCommunists inBereza Kartuska (now inBelarus).
DuringWorld War II,Nazi Germany established many of itsconcentration camps inOccupied Poland. After World War II, the Soviet Army and theCommunist government of Poland used some of the former German concentration camps asPOW camps and they were later used as internment camps where Polish opponents of the Communists and the Soviets, as well as Ukrainians and ethnic Germans or their sympathizers, were imprisoned.
Attempts were later made to bring two of the camp commandants to justice;Salomon Morel andCzesław Gęborski. Gęborski spent 22 months in prison and died during his judicial process.
TheKingdom of Romania established theBogdanovka concentration camp for Jews inTransnistria Governorate.
InImperial Russia, penallabor camps were known by the namekatorga.
The first Soviet camps were organized in June 1918 for the detention of Czechoslovak soldiers.[142] TheSolovki prison camp existed since 1923.
In theSoviet Union, labour penitentiary camps were simply calledcamps, almost always plural ("lagerya"). These were used as forcedlabor camps, and they had small percentages of political prisoners. AfterAleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book titledThe Gulag Archipelago was published, they became known to the rest of the world asGulags, after the branch of theNKVD (state security service) that managed them. (In theRussian language, the term is used to denote the whole system, rather than individual camps.)
In addition to what is sometimes referred to as theGulag proper (consisting of the "corrective labor camps") there were "corrective labor colonies", originally intended for prisoners with short sentences, and "special resettlements" of deported peasants. At its peak, the system held a combined total of 2,750,000 prisoners. In all, perhaps more than 18,000,000 people passed through theGulag system in 1929–1953, and millions more weredeported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[143][144][145]
Of the 5.7 millionSoviet prisoners of war who were captured by the Germans, 3.5 million of them had died in German captivity by the end of the war.[146]
After World War II, some 3,000,000German POWs and civilians were sent to Soviet labor camps, as part ofwar reparations by forced labor.[citation needed]
During theSecond Chechen War, the Russian forces used theChernokozovo internment camp as the main center of theirfiltration camp system in Chechnya from 1999 to 2003 to suppress Chechnya's independence movement. Tens of thousands of Chechens were arrested and detained in these camps. According to Chechen witnesses, the inmates were beaten while some women were raped by Russian soldiers.[147]
Since early 2017, there have been reports ofgay concentration camps inRamzan Kadyrov'sChechnya, which are allegedly being used for the extrajudicial detention and torture of men who are suspected of being gay or bisexual. Around 100 men have been imprisoned and at least three people have already died.[148] Chechnya is a predominantlyMuslim, ultra-conservative society in whichhomophobia is widespread andhomosexuality is taboo, and where having a gay relative is seen as a "stain on the entire extended family".[149]
An extensivelist of Gulag camps is being compiled based on official sources.
During World War II (operated by GermanGestapo):
During theYugoslav Wars:
During theKosovo War (operated byKLA):
During the Second World War, the Slovak government made a small number (Nováky, Sereď) of transit camps for Jewish citizens. They were transported toAuschwitz-Birkenau andRavensbrück concentration camps. For German help witharyanization of Slovakia, the Slovak government paid a fee of 500 Reichsmark for each Jew.[citation needed]
Although the first modern concentration camps used to systematically dissuade rebels from fighting are usually attributed to the British during theSecond Boer War, in theSpanish–American War, forts and camps were used by the Spanish in Cuba to separate rebels from their agricultural support bases. Upwards of 200,000 Cubans died by disease and famine in these environments.[151]
There were alsoFrancoist concentration camps.[152] During the 21st century,immigration detention centers known as CIEs (Centro de Internamiento de Extranjeros) are run by theSpanish Ministry of the Interior.[153] Various civil organizations, such as (APDHA, SOS Racismo andAndalucía Acoge) have appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court to declare the regulations behind the CIEs null and void for violating eight aspects of human rights.[154]
In 1900, theBritishWar Office constructed a concentration camp inDiyatalawa to house Boer prisoners captured in theSecond Boer War. Initially constructed to house 2,500 prisoners and 1,000 guards and staff, the number of prisoners increased to 5,000.[155][156]
In late 2008, as theSri Lankan civil war drew to a close, theSri Lankan Government established a number of camps to hold displaced people who managed to escape the war zone.[157][158] Between October 2008 and May 2009 290,000 displaced people were moved into the camps in government controlled territory.[159][160] These camps were guarded by theSri Lankan military and surrounded by barbed wire.[161] The displaced people were not allowed to leave the camps and aid agencies were not allowed inside the camps.[162] The camps were described as internment camps by some NGO's, journalists and aid workers.[163][164][165][166][167][168]
The conditions in the camps were below minimum humanitarian standards.[169][170] There were reports of rape, torture, disappearances and arbitrary detention within the camps.[161][162][171] In early May 2009, days before the civil war ended, the government gave assurances that over 80% of the displaced people would be resettled by the end of 2009.[172] As the government failed to honour this commitment international concern grew over the slow pace of resettlement.[173][174] The resettlement process accelerated in late 2009 but it was not until September 2012, four years after they were established, the camps were officially closed.[175][176]
During the Second World War, the Swedish government operated eight internment camps.
In May 1941 a total of ten camps for 3,000–3,500 were planned, but towards the end of 1941 the plans were put on ice and in 1943 the last camp was closed down. All the records were burned. After the war many of those who had been put in the camps had trouble finding work as few wanted to hire "subversive elements".
TheNavy had at least one special detainment ship for communists and "troublemakers".
Most of the camps were not labour camps with the exception of Vindeln and Stensele where the internees were used to build a secret airbase.
Foreign soldiers were put in camps inLångmora andSmedsbo, German refugees and deserters inRinkaby.[180] After the Second World War three camps were used for Baltic refugees fromLithuania,Latvia andEstonia (including 150 Baltic soldiers) atRänneslätt, Rinkaby andGälltofta.
During World War II more than 100,000 mainlyAllied soldiers were interned in Switzerland. These included internees from the UK, France, Poland and Russia, and Italians and Germans who had fled combat. The Swiss government was required to keep these soldiers interned until the end of the hostilities, in line with theGeneva Convention of 1929. The soldiers were held in barracks, and they were used as workers for agriculture and industry, except for the officers, who not were compelled to forced labour and stayed in unoccupied mountain hotels, mainly inDavos.[181]
In contrast,civilians,[182][181] for instance Jewish refugees,[183] were usually sent back to the territories occupied by the Nazi regime.
The Swiss government operated duringWorld War II in Switzerland at least three internment camps:
In addition, there were a number of regular[clarification needed] internment camps.
During theSecond Boer War, several small islands inBermuda'sGreat Sound were used as natural concentration camps, despite protests by the local government. 4,619 Boers were interned on these islands, compared to Bermuda's total population of around 17,000; at least 34 Boers died in transit to Bermuda.[186]
After World War II, British efforts to preventJewish emigration into theirPalestine Mandate led to the construction of internment camps inCyprus where up to 30,000Holocaust survivors were held at any one time to prevent their entry into the country. They were released in February 1949 after thefounding of Israel.[187]
During World War IIrish republicans were imprisoned in camps inShrewsbury andBromyard.[citation needed]
During World War II, initially, refugees who had fled from Germany were also included, as were suspected BritishNazi sympathisers such asBritish Union of Fascists leaderOswald Mosley. The British government rounded up 74,000 German, Austrian and Italian aliens. Within 6 months the 112 alien tribunals had individually summoned and examined 64,000 aliens, and the vast majority were released, having been found to be "friendly aliens" (mostlyJews); examples includeHermann Bondi andThomas Gold and later members of theAmadeus Quartet. British nationals were detained underDefence Regulation 18B. Eventually only 2,000 of the remainder were interned. Initially they were shipped overseas, but that was halted when a GermanU-boat sank the SSArandora Star in July 1940 with the loss of 800 internees, though this was not the first loss that had occurred. The last internees were released late in 1945, though many were released in 1942. In Britain, internees were housed in camps and prisons. Some camps had tents rather than buildings with internees sleeping directly on the ground. Men and women were separated and most contact with the outside world was denied. A number of prominent Britons including writerH. G. Wells campaigned against the internment of refugees.
During theIrish war of independence of 1919 to 1921, 12,000 Irish people were held without trial.[citation needed] During this warBallykinlar Barracks Internment Camp, County Down held over 2,000 men from all 32 Counties of Ireland.[188]
During the 1954–60Mau Mau rebellion inKenya, camps were established to hold suspected rebels. It is unclear how many were held, but estimates range from 80,000[189] to 160,000[190][191] of theKikuyu population, with 1,090 Mau Mau detainees sentenced to death and executed by hanging.[191][189] Maltreatment is said to have included torture and summary executions.[192][193]
Beginning in 1950, under theBriggs Plan (a response to theMalayan Emergency) Chinese squatters were relocated to hundreds of internment camps in various areas of the Malay Peninsula. Known asNew Villages, these camps were intended to become permanent settlements. As attacks by theMalayan Communist Party declined, the curfews were lifted, fences removed, and the camps gradually ceased to be internment camps. To this day many villages founded in this way are known as New Villages and remain ethnically Chinese.
One of the most famous examples of moderninternment (and one which made world headlines) occurred inNorthern Ireland in 1971, when hundreds ofnationalists andIrish Republicans were arrested by theBritish Army and theRoyal Ulster Constabulary on the orders of thenPrime Minister of Northern Ireland,Brian Faulkner, with the backing of theBritish government. Historians generally view that period of internment as inflamingsectarian tensions in Northern Ireland while failing in its stated aim of arresting members of the paramilitaryProvisional IRA. Many of the people arrested were completely unconnected with the Provisional IRA but, through bungling and incompetence, had their names appear on the list of those to be interned,[citation needed] while over 100 IRA men escaped arrest. The backlash against internment and its bungled application contributed to the decision of the British government under Prime MinisterEdward Heath to suspend theStormont governmental system in Northern Ireland and replace it withDirect rule from London, under the authority of a BritishSecretary of State for Northern Ireland.
From 1971 internment began, beginning with the arrest of 342 suspected republican guerrillas and paramilitary members on 9 August. They were held atHM PrisonMaze then calledLong Kesh Detention Centre. By 1972, 924 men were interned. Serious rioting ensued, and 23 people died in three days. TheBritish government attempted to show some balance by arresting someloyalist paramilitaries later, but out of the 1,981 men interned,[194] only 107 were loyalists. Internment was ended in 1975, but had resulted in increased support for the IRA and created political tensions which culminated in the1981 Irish Hunger Strike and the death ofBobby Sands, member of British Parliament (Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner Party.)[195][196] His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. The imprisonment of people under anti-terrorism laws specific to Northern Ireland continued until theGood Friday Agreement of 1998, but these laws required theright to a fair trial be respected. However non-juryDiplock courts tried paramilitary-related trials, to preventjury intimidation.
Many of those interned were held in a detention facility located atRAF Long Kesh military base, later known asLong Kesh Detention Centre and eventually becomingHer Majesty's Prison Maze, outsideBelfast. Internment had previously been used as a means of repressing theIrish Republican Army. It was used between 1939–1945 and 1956–1962. On all these occasions, internment has had a somewhat limited success.
| Name of the camp | Date of establishment | Date of liberation | Estimated nos. of | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prisoners | Deaths | |||
| Long Kesh Detention Centre. Later converted toHM Prison Maze nearBelfast,Northern Ireland. |
|
| > 1,981[194] | #? Some fromhunger strikes |
During the Second World War the British government allowed thePolish Government in Exile to establish and run its own internment camps in Scotland. Locations as identified by the historian Simon Webb includeRothesay on theIsle of Bute, andTighnabruaich on the Scottish mainland. Rothesay was used to house the political enemies of the leader of the Polish Government in Exile,Władysław Sikorski, as well as Poles considered by Sikorski's Government in Exile of being morally dubious.Tighnabruaich held criminals under the jurisdiction of the Polish Government in Exile. Webb claims the Poles were later allowed to open further camps atKingledoors,Auchterarder andInverkeithing nearEdinburgh. Although deaths, and claims of torture and privations were made by numerous BritishMembers of Parliament against the internment camps, the camps were treated as sovereign Polish territory and local Scottish police forces were unable to investigate what happened in them. Webb also suggests that beingJewish or a suspectedCommunist was often enough to lead to Polish citizens under the jurisdiction of the Polish Government in Exile being sent to one of the internment camps.[197]
The termconcentration camp was first used by the British military during theBoer War (1899–1902). Facing attack byBoerguerrillas, British forces rounded up the Boer women and children as well as black people living on Boer land, and sent them to 34tented camps scattered around South Africa. Altogether, 116,572 Boers were interned, roughly a quarter of the population.[198] This was done as part of ascorched earth policy to deny the Boer guerrillas access to the supplies of food and clothing they needed to continue the war.[199]
One such camp was situated atEast London, South Africa.[200] Though they were notextermination camps, the women and children of Boer men who were still fighting were given smallerrations. The poor diet and inadequatehygiene led to contagious diseases such asmeasles,typhoid anddysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths—a report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boer (of whom 22,074 were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died ofstarvation,disease and exposure in the camps.[198]
In contrast to these figures, during the war the British, Colonial and South African forces' casualties included 5,774 killed in action and 13,250 deaths from disease, while the Boers' casualties in the Transvaal and Orange Free State up to December 1901, included 2640 killed in action and 945 deaths from disease.[201]
During World War I, South African troops invaded neighboringGerman South-West Africa. German settlers were rounded up and sent to concentration camps inPretoria and later inPietermaritzburg.
During its 1918 invasion ofSoviet Russia, the UK built two concentration camps:Mudyug island[202] and Iukang onOstrovnoy island.[203]
DuringWorld War I, there was a concentration camp inFrongoch,Merionethshire. First German POWs were held here until 1916, then 1,800Irish political prisoners were held there following theEaster Rising, includingMichael Collins. The prisoners were very poorly treated and Frongoch became a breeding ground for Irish revolutionaries.
The first large-scale confinement of a specific ethnic group in detention centers began in the summer of 1838, when PresidentMartin Van Buren ordered theU.S. Army to enforce theTreaty of New Echota (aNative American removal treaty) by rounding up theCherokee into prison camps before relocating them. Called "emigration depots", the three main ones were located at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga, Tennessee),Fort Payne, Alabama, andFort Cass (Charleston, Tennessee). Fort Cass was the largest, with over 4,800 Cherokee prisoners held over the summer of 1838.[204] Many died in these camps due to disease, which spread rapidly because of the close quarters and bad sanitary conditions.
In November 1855 an internment camp was set up on Fox Island inPuget Sound for non-combatant tribal members, following the killing of nine white settlers. The internees were faced with poor food and shelter, and lack of medical care. Of some 700 people held at the site, 80 died between May and September 1856. The main causes of death were respiratory conditions such as tuberculosis.[205]
TheUnited States – Dakota Indian War of 1862 resulted in the loss of life, fear, suffering and hardship for early Minnesotan citizens while disproportionately harming theDakota and other indigenous people who found themselves on either side of the conflict, much like the concurrentCivil War. Minnesota GovernorAlexander Ramsey decreed on 9 September 1862 that "theSioux Indians ofMinnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state" leading to the forced removal and banishment of the indigenous people who would surrender and to the government-sanctioned bounties that would be awarded for the scalps of any fleeing or resisting indigenous person.[citation needed]
On 26 December 1862 thirty eight Dakota warriors, including We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee (often called Chaska), who was pardoned, were hanged with the label of murderers and rapists of civilians rather than 'war criminals' in the largest mass execution in United States history at the order of PresidentAbraham Lincoln, with the remaining 361 prisoners being sent to segregated prison camps in other states just days before theEmancipation Proclamation was issued.[206]
During the winter of 1862-63 more than 1600 Dakota non-combatants, including women, children and the elderly, as well as "mixed-blood" families and Christian and farmer Dakota who had opposed the war, were force-marched to a fenced concentration camp near the base ofFort Snelling, which was built on the Dakota sacred area ofBdóte, at the meeting point of theMinnesota River and theMississippi River. Living conditions and sanitation were poor, and infectious diseases such asmeasles struck the camp, killing between an estimated 102 and 300 Dakota.[207] Here the women were separated from the men before being exiled to reservations in neighboring states and Canada. These reservations tended to disregard Native American culture and traditions and their children were placed in boarding schools, which focused on European-based culture and religions.[208]
By 1862, thescorched earth tactics employed by GeneralJames Henry Carleton and his subordinate, ColonelKit Carson against theNavajo had pushed many to the brink of starvation.[209][210] Carleton then ordered some 10,000 Navajo on a 300 mi (480 km)forced march known as theLong Walk of 1864, from their homeland in theFour Corners region, to the area ofBosque Redondo in theNew Mexico Territory, where they remained interned for the next four years.[211] Conditions in the camp proved deplorable, and many died from starvation and disease, until by December 1865, their numbers had been reduced to around 6,000.[212][213] The Navajo were allowed to return home in 1868, with the signing of theTreaty of Bosque Redondo, after negotiations withWilliam Tecumseh Sherman andSamuel F. Tappan of theIndian Peace Commission.[213]
On 7 December 1901, during thePhilippine–American War, GeneralJ. Franklin Bell began aconcentration camp policy inBatangas—everything outside the "dead lines" was systematically destroyed: humans, crops, domestic animals, houses, and boats. A similar policy had been quietly initiated on the island ofMarinduque some months before.[214][215]
At the height of the First World War, many of German descent became the target of two regulations passed by PresidentWoodrow Wilson.[216] Two of the four main World War I-era internment camps were located in Hot Springs, N.C., and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.[217] Attorney GeneralA. Mitchell Palmer wrote that "All aliens interned by the government are regarded as enemies, and their property is treated accordingly."
In reaction to thebombing of Pearl Harbor byJapan in 1941, United States PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt issuedExecutive Order 9066 on 19 February 1942, which allowed military commanders to designate areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." Under this order allJapanese andAmericans of Japanese ancestry were removed from Western coastal regions to concentration camps inArkansas,California,Oregon,Washington,Wyoming,Colorado,Arizona,Utah, andIdaho;German andItalian citizens, permanent residents, and American citizens of those respective ancestries (and American citizen family members) were removed from (among other places) the West andEast Coast and relocated or interned, and roughly one-third of the US was declared an exclusionary zone.
TheFort Lincoln, North Dakota internment camp opened in April 1941 and closed in 1945. It had a peak population of 650. In 2014 it housed the United Tribes Technical College. Some CCC barracks and two brick army barracks were fenced and used to house the internees. The first internees wereItalian andGerman seamen. 800 Italians arrived, but they were soon sent toFort Missoula in Montana. The first Japanese AmericanIssei arrived in 1942, but they were also transferred to other camps. The Germans were the only internees left at the camp until February 1945, when 650 more Japanese Americans were brought in. These Japanese Americans had previously renounced their U.S. citizenship and were left waiting to be deported to Japan. The brick buildings remain, but others are gone. A newspaper article fromThe Bismarck Tribune, 2 March 1946, stated that 200 Japanese were still being held at Fort Lincoln.
Oklahoma housed German and Italian POW's atFort Reno, located near El Reno, and Camp Gruber, near Braggs, Oklahoma.
Almost 120,000 Japanese Americans and resident Japanese aliens would eventually be removed from their homes and relocated.
About 2,200 Japanese living inSouth America (mostly inPeru) were transported to the United States and placed in internment camps.[218]
Approximately 5,000 Germans living in severalLatin American republics were also removed and transported to the United States and placed in internment camps.[219] In addition, at least 10,905German Americans were held in more than 50 internment sites throughout the United States andHawaii.
Aleut peoples living on theAleutian Islands were also interned during the war.Funter Bay was one such camp.[220] Restitutionwas paid by the US government in 1987 and 1993.
Per theEmergency Detention Act (Title II of theMcCarran Internal Security Act of 1950), six concentration camps were constructed in 1952 with the expectation that they would need to be used to detain political dissidents in the event that the U.S. government was forced to declare astate of emergency. They were originally intended to hold alleged communists, anti-war activists, civil rights 'militants,' and other dissidents. They were maintained from the 1950s to the 1960s, but they were never used for their intended purpose.[221]
In 2002, theUnited States opened theGuantanamo Bay detention camp inCuba and theParwan Detention Facility inAfghanistan. Both facilities were established in order to detain people captured during theAfghan War. In 2003, in order to detain people captured during theOccupation of Iraq, the United States transformed theAbu Ghraib prison into an internment and detention camp. Guantanamo Bay has been called an "Internment Camp" byThe Intercept[222] and a "Concentration Camp" by theLos Angeles Times.[223]
Due to the American government's policy of holding detainees indefinitely,[224][225] a number of captives have been held for extended periods without being legally charged, includingAyman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi who was captured in 2001 and released from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in 2009. A document leaked from theInternational Committee of the Red Cross was published byThe New York Times in November 2004, which accused the U.S. military of cruelty "tantamount to torture" against detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay facility.[226][227] In May 2005, thehuman rights groupAmnesty International referred to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp as "the Gulag of our times."[228]
In September 2006, after aseries of abuses including the rape and murder of prisoners was reported to the public,[229] control of the Abu Ghraib prison was transferred to the Iraqis. Subsequent investigative reports suggest that the United States continued to directly influence and oversee a campaign of torture carried out inside Iraqi facilities even after the handover of Iraq and related facilities was finalized.[230] In March 2013 it was revealed that American officials, under pressure from Afghan officials, reached an agreement after more than a year of negotiations to hand over control of Bagram Theater Internment Facility to the Afghan government. In the deal, Bagram Theater Internment Facility, called "the other Guantanamo," "Guantanamo's evil twin" or "Obama's Gitmo" by human rights groups after reports of systematic abuse,[231] was renamed the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan. Additionally, the agreement extended authority for American officials to have say over which detainees could be released from the facility, containing guarantees from the Afghan government that certain detainees would not be released regardless of whether or not they could be tried for circumstances related to their individual detentions. The Afghans formally took over control of other day-to-day operations.[232][233][234] Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp remains open and fully operated by Americans.[235][236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244]
In 2018,Donald Trump instituted a "zero tolerance" policy which mandated the criminal prosecution of all adults who were accused of violating immigration laws by immigration authorities.[245][246][247] This policy directly led to the large-scale,[248][249] forcibleseparation of children and parents arriving at the United States-Mexico border,[250] including those who were seeking asylum from violence in their home countries.[251] Parents were arrested and put into criminal detention, while their children were taken away, classified as unaccompanied alien minors, to be put into child immigrant detention centers.[247][252]
Even though Trump signed an executive order which ostensibly ended the family separation component ofhis administration's migrant detentions in June 2018, it continued under alternative justifications into 2019.[253]
By the end of 2018, the number of children being held had swelled to a high of nearly 15,000,[254][255] which by August 2019 had been reduced to less than 9,000.[256] In 2019, many experts, includingAndrea Pitzer, the author ofOne Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, have acknowledged the designation of the detention centers as "concentration camps"[257][258] particularly given that the centers, previously cited by Texas officials for more than 150 health violations[259] and reported deaths in custody,[260] reflect a record typical of the history of deliberate substandard healthcare and nutrition in concentration camps.[261]
This family separation policy and the detention facilities again came under scrutiny following a 2021 surge in migrant arrivals.[262]
In late June 2025, GovernorRon DeSantis of Florida began construction of theSouth Florida Detention Facility on a 39-square-mile (100 km2) parcel in the Florida Everglades, which opened on July 1, 2025 The first group of immigrant detainees arrived on July 3, 2025, beginning the facility's operations.[263] Some detainees have reported harsh conditions at the facility, citing limited access to water, insufficient food, and restrictions on the practice of their religion.[264] Critics of the facility have described it as a concentration camp and have referred to it as "Alligator Auschwitz."[265][266]
Even though some organizations have refused to label these facilities "concentration camps",[267][268] hundreds ofHolocaust andgenocide scholars rejected this refusal via an open letter which was addressed to theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[269][270]
InSouth Vietnam, the government ofNgo Dinh Diem counteredNorth Vietnamese subversion (including the assassination of over 450 South Vietnamese officials in 1956) by detaining tens of thousands of suspected communists in "political re-education centers." This was a ruthless program that resulted in the incarceration of many non-communists, even though it also resulted in the successful curtailment of communist activity in the country, if only for a time. The North Vietnamese government claimed that over 65,000 individuals were incarcerated and 2,148 individuals were killed in the process by November 1957, but these estimates may be exaggerated.[271]
TheStrategic Hamlet Program was a plan to stop the spread of Communism which was implemented between 1961 and 1963 by the government ofSouth Vietnam and US military advisors, the Strategic Hamlet Program was implemented during theVietnam War. In an attempt to isolate the communists by preventing them from influencing the rural South Vietnamese population, the South Vietnamese government and Us military advisors constructed thousands of new, tightly controlled protected villages or"strategic hamlets". In some cases, people voluntarily moved into these settlements, but in most cases, people were forcibly relocated, and as a result, these settlements have been described as internment camps. The ruralpeasants would be provided with protection, economic support, and aid by the government, thereby strengthening their relationship with the South Vietnamese government (GVN). It was hoped that this program would convince the peasants to become increasingly loyal to the South Vietnamese government, however, the Strategic Hamlet Program was a failure, it alienated many and after it was canceled, theViet Cong's influence increased and rural peasants moved back to their old homes or they moved to larger cities.[272]
In the years which followed theNorth Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam, up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent tore-education camps, where many of them were forced to perform hard labor, tortured, starved, and exposed to diseases.[273]
During theAxis occupation of Yugoslavia (1941–1944), as many as 70Nazi concentration camps were formed inYugoslavia.[274] The main victims in these camps were ethnicSerbs,Jews andRoma.[275] It is estimated that between 1 million and 1.7 million people perished as victims of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia.[276]
In 1931, 499,969 citizens of Yugoslavia listed their native language as German and they comprised 3.6% of population of the country.[278] In 1944, an unknown and disputed number of theDanube Swabians left the country,[279] together with the defeated German army.[280] As a result of the decisions of the Anti-fascist Council of national liberation of Yugoslavia ("Antifašističko veće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije" –AVNOJ) inJajce on 21 November 1943 and on 21 November 1944 inBelgrade all legal rights and citizenship were collectively canceled for about 168,000 civilian members of theDanube Swabian minority who remained in Yugoslavia (mostly in theBačka andBanat regions) after military defeat of the German army. Furthermore, they were fully dispossessed of all property. About 7,000 German-speaking citizens were killed by the local Yugoslav partisans in the autumn of 1944. Most of the other Danube Swabian civilians were interned and driven into numerous labor camps and at least eight additional prison camps were built for those who were unable to work: the old, the sick, and children under the age of 14 and mothers with small children under the age of 2 or 3.[281]
These camps for the sick, the elderly, children, and those who were unable to work were:
In theBačka:
In theBanat:
InSyrmia:
InSlavonia:
Over a three-year period, 48,447 of the internedDanube Swabians died in the labor and prison camps from starvation, cold, and disease. Nearly 35,000 of them succeeded in crossing the escape routes from the camps into nearbyHungary andRomania. Beginning in the summer of 1946,[282] thousands of orphaned children were forcibly taken from the camps and placed in children's homes. Over the next decade, most of them were returned to their families by the International Red CrossICRC.[283] Additionally, more than 8,000 women between the ages of 18 and 35 and over 4,000 men between the ages of 16 and 45 were deported from theBačka andBanat regions ofYugoslavia to forced labor camps in theUSSR from the end of 1944 through the beginning of 1945.
The camps were disbanded in 1948 and the Yugoslav government recognized the citizenship of the remaining Danube Swabians.[284] In 1948, 57,180 Germans lived in Yugoslavia.[278] In the following decades, most of them emigrated to Germany.[285]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)...a mixed bag of Nazis, soldiers, merchant seamen, refugees and Jewish people of German descent.
By the general estimate China's prison and labor camp population was roughly 10 million in any one year under Mao. Descriptions of camp life by inmates, which point to high mortality rates, indicate a probable annual death rate of at least 10 per cent.
Between several hundred thousand and more than 1 million Muslims have been detained in China's mass "reeducation" camps in the restive province of Xinjiang, Adrian Zenz of the European School of Culture and Theology in Korntal, Germany, said in a report released Tuesday.
