Prisoner of War Camps During World War I
“The POWs went through something so horrible, you don’t know who’s coming back.” — Gideon Raff
Fighting during World War I was a literal nightmare. The trenches made for conditions that were uninhabitable, and yet, soldiers were forced to remain there for days on end. Lance Corporal Richard Frederick wrote that his regiment was in the trenches “for seven days and had a most awful time” (Archives 1915). While the soldiers were in these trenches, they are constantly “dodging damned great bombs” as written in a letter by Sergeant William Hastings, which Private Edward Stewart agreed with by writing that they were “being continually swept with shells” (Archives 1915).
The trenches only got worse as the war continued. According to a letter from Sergeant William Davis, life in the trenches was “nothing but one long duel all day and every day” (Archives 1916–18). Not only are the soldiers there all day long, but Private Gilbert Williams noted in 1916 that “there was only just time to bury the dead in the sides of the trenches… one is constantly seeing the bones of men” and according to Lane Corporal Hugh Skilling, “the water was over our knees in the trenches” (Archives 1916–18).
While these trenches conditions were egregious enough, many of these soldiers found themselves captured as a prisoner of war (POW) and taken to a POW camp, which turned out to be little better than the trenches.
While people often look at foreign prisoner of war camps and the treatment of those prisoners in disgust, many of the same conditions were present in all POW camps across all countries. That is to say, the treatment of prisoners across all countries was often detestable, but many soldiers learned to adapt.
In many German prisoner of war camps, “the prisoners faced with an acute sense of sadness and hopelessness” the first couple months they were imprisoned (Kokebayeva 7). In these camps, the prisoners were becoming increasingly worse because they were malnourished, overworked, exhausted, and mentally battered(Kokebayeva 10). The guards would hit them, make cruel remarks, and made them work until they dropped (Kokebayeva 11). Despite these horrible conditions, soldiers began adapting out of necessity. Some of the prisoners who had higher education levels “tried to substitute the absence of their usual professional services with the German language, music lessons, and reading… literature” (Kokebayeva 7). Not everything in the camps were horrible all the time as the POWs were sometimes allowed access to literature and music, and so the soldiers managed to survive the ordeal the best they could.
The conditions were similar in Japanese internment camps, although soldiers sometimes neglected to fully disclose in their letters the conditions in which they lived. Throughout their time spent in these camps, “often in combination with growing feelings of bitterness, disillusion, and depression as a result of ongoing imprisonment” many POWs knew that the true details of their situation “might cause anxiety at home, which the POWs were keen to alleviate” (Barkhof 6).
However, other soldiers were extremely explicit in their descriptions, and wrote home of the rats, fleas, “incompetency of the doctor, the poor sanitary facilities… as well as the punishments of the prisoners” (Barkhof 6). Jennifer Kewley Draskau argues that some soldiers were so focused on the details of their trauma and living conditions because they wanted “to be perceived as casualties of the war… and share in the glory through… their hardships” (Kewley 219). The imprisoned soldiers were often humiliated, demeaned, harassed, and treated as scum (Barkhof 7–8). Internment camps in all countries were utilized as tools to further break enemy soldiers.
In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the story of Paul Baumer’s war experiences is told. At one point, Baumer comes face to face with Russian prisoners of war. There is so little food to be had for the prisoners that they “slink about [the] camp and pick over the garbage tins…. They are all rather feeble… They have dysentery” (Remarque 116–117). These Russian POWs are broken, and so “their backs, their necks are bent, their knees sag, their heads droop” (Remarque 117). This is partially due to the mental toll of being in captivity all day every day, and partially due to the kicks that were aimed their way by their captors (Remarque 117). The prisoners of war from all countries suffered in internment camps from all countries.
While most details surrounding prisoner of war camps are sad, there is good news- at the end of war, many prisoners of war are able to return in a process called repatriation.
Works Cited
Archives, The National. “Letters from the First World War, 1915.” The National Archives, The National Archives, 18 Oct. 2017, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/letters-first-world-war-1915/.
Archives, The National. “Letters from the First World War, 1916- 18.” The National Archives, The National Archives, 18 Oct. 2017, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/letters-first-world-war-1916-18/.
Barkhof, Sandra. “German Prisoners of War in Japan during the First World War: Letters from the Colonial Frontline.” Journal of War & Culture Studies 10.3 (2017): 253. Web.
Kewley Draskau, J. 2012. Kulturkrieg and Frontgeist from Behind the Wire: World War 1 Newspapers from Douglas Internment Camp. In: Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, eds. Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 207–26.
Kokebayeva, Gulzhaukhar, Kadyrzhan Smagulov, and Gulnara Mussabalina. “Violation of International Conventions Relatively to the Treatment of Prisoners of War during the First World War.” International Journal of Environmental and Science Education 11.11 (2016): 4229–40. Web.
Marsh, Alan. “POWs in American History: A Synopsis.” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 1998. Web. 02 Mar. 2018.
Moritz, Verena, and Julia Walleczek-Fritz. “Prisoners of War (Austria-Hungary).” International Encyclopedia of the First World War, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2018.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Fawcett World Library, 1963. Print.
“The Wounded and Prisoners of War.” First World War. Royden History, n.d. Web.