Prisons, Prisoners & Camps

A large prison-camp complex opened by the Japanese during World War II to house POWs captured in Singapore, Changi was set on nearly 16 square kilometers of undulating hills at the eastern end of Singapore.

One of several Japanese POW camps on Java during World War II, Bicycle Camp was in Koenigs Plein (Kings Place), a suburb of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), and occupied an area of approximately 700 by 900 feet (215 m by 250 m). Named by the POWs, it was formerly the home of the 10th Battalion of the Dutch colonial army (Netherlands East Indies...

Campo 21 (P.G. 21) at Chieti, on the Adriatic coast near Pescara, was typical of the prison camps operated by the Italian armed forces during World War II. The camp comprised eight single-story barracks, each in a U-shape, with additional buildings serving as cookhouse, mess hall, hospital, guard barracks, and administrative office.

Stalag Luft 3, near the town of Sagan in the German province of Silesia, became the largest and most famous prison camp for Allied airmen in World War II. It was opened in April 1942, after the Luftwaffe decided that all captured airmen should be confined in a single camp. In its original incarnation, Stalag Luft 3 comprised two compounds: East,...

One of the most notorious atrocities committed against POWs in the Pacific theater of World War II, the Bataan Death March took American and Filipino troops to prison camps in the northern Philippines after they surrendered to the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula on 9 April 1942. As a result of their three-month defense of the peninsula, America...

The largest concentration of American prisoners of war in the Far East in World War II, Cabanatuan comprised three camps near Cabu village, five to 15 miles (24km) northeast of Cabanatuan City in south central Luzon, Philippine Islands.

Built between 1942 and 1945 by Allied prisoners of war and native slave labor, and extending from Ban Pong, Thailand, to Thanbyuzayat, Burma, the Burma-Thailand railway was intended to supply Japanese forces fighting in Burma. As World War II progressed, American submarines and Allied aircraft had increasingly threatened Japanese cargo ships in ...

In April 1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp complex near Hanover, Germany. The contents of the "Horror Camp" shocked and disgusted hardened soldiers and medics alike. Because of extensive British film and press coverage of conditions in the camp, it was held up as a symbol of the cruelty of the Nazi regime and pro...

The Bullet Decree or "Kugel-Erlass" in German also known as "Aktion Kugel" was a secret decree (Geheimbefehl), issued by the German army. The Bullet Decree stated that escaped and recaptured POW’s were to be handed over to the Gestapo for execution, in direct disobeying of the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention.

When the occupation of Germany was completed by the Allied forces, there began the formidable task of bringing to some form of justice the vast number of war criminals. It was a task that would last until 1948, when the German courts were authorized to take over this responsible act of retribution. There were many legal and moral problems involv...