WWII POW and Internment Camps

WWII POW & Internment Camps

This page and the maps and other pages it links to represents the work on a project to document and map all of the POW, internment, and concentration camps worldwide during World War II. Although most of the camps in North America have been mapped, those in Europe and Japan are incomplete. Work is proceeding.

Inspiration for this project was a conversation with a friend where the question, “Is the U.S. prison population greater than the total number of imprisoned people during World War II? ”

120,000 ethnic Japanese were interned in the U.S. during World War II—many were U.S. citizens
Both the U.S. and Canada interned conscientious objectors
More than 400,000 POWs housed in camps across the U.S.
How many POWs were housed in Europe?
There were dozens of POW camps in Japan and the western Pacific.
Some of the former Nazi concentration camps were later used by the Russians.

WWII Timeline

This timeline is a reminder that the war in Europe was raging for almost two years before the United States entered the war. Canada had established its POW and internment camps much earlier than the U.S.

The U.S. started taking German and Italian prisoners of war in North Africa. Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943. Italian POWs in the United States, thus had their status changed from POW to non-combatants and had more freedoms in the camps. Of course, German troops still occupied Italy, and fighting there didn't end until mid-1944.

There were few camps that had Japanese POWs because Japan's doctrine demanded that Japanese soldiers not be captured—that capture was dishonorable. However, there were some Japanese POWs and a small number of camps housed them. How they were dealt with when they were returned to Japan after the war ended is a story that we'll investigate in the future.

Internment Camps

President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 enacted the policy of interning people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens. These people were removed from their homes. Also interned (but not because of Roosevelt's order) were the native peoples of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands in the territory of Alaska.

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 granted reparations to Japanese Americans who were interned by the U.S. during WWII. Each surviving internee was given $20,000 in compensation. A total of 82,219 people received that compensation.

The Who's Who of Jailers

The U.S. and Canada established exclusion zones on their west coasts, where people of Japanese ancestry were not allowed to live regardless of citizenship. They were moved to internment camps further inland.
Mussolini's armies interned nomadic tribes in North Africa. (tens of thousands died in squalid conditions)
Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina also interned their Japanese populations, following the U.S. lead, but sent them to the U.S. for internment.
The British government tried to limit the flow of Jews to Palestine by interning them in places like Cyprus.
The British government, expecting attacks from Nazi Germany on Gibralta, moved much of the civilain population of Gibralta to a camp on Jamaica.