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This is a list of internment 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 are excluded from this list, particularly refugee camps operated or endorsed by the United 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.

Argentina

During the Dirty War which accompanied the 1976–1983 military dictatorship, there were over 300 places throughout the country that served as secret detention centres, where people were interrogated, tortured, and killed. 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.

These were relatively small secret detention centres rather than actual camps. The peak years were 1976–78. According to the report of CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) Report. 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.

Australia

World War I

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 the Croatian coastal region of Dalmatia, then under Austrian rule.

In 1915 many of the smaller camps in Australia closed, with their inmates transferred to larger camps. The largest camp was Holsworthy Internment Camp at Holsworthy. Families of the interned men were placed in a camp near Canberra.

World War II

During World War II, internment camps were established at Orange and Hay in New South Wales for ethnic Germans in Australia whose loyalty was suspect; German refugees from Nazism including the "Dunera boys"; and Italian immigrants, many were later transferred to Tatura in Victoria (4,721 Italian immigrants were interned in Australia).

Modern day

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection currently jointly manages two immigration centres on Nauru and Manus Islands with the host governments of Nauru and Papua 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 not United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-endorsed refugee camps, and the operation of these facilities has caused controversy, such as allegations of torture and other breaches of human rights.

Austria-Hungary

World War I (Austria-Hungary)

Starting in 1914, 16 camps were built in the Austrian regions of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria. The majority of prisoners came from Russia, Italy, Serbia and Romania. Citizens deemed enemies of the state were displaced from their homes and sent to camps throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In addition of Internierungslager (internment camp) for civilians of enemy states, Austria-Hungary incarcerated over one million Allied prisoners of war.

Austria

• Braunau in Bohemia (today: Broumov in the Czech Republic), formed on 11. June 1915. Housed Serbian and Russian POWs and civilian internees, including underage Serbian children.
• Mauthausen, formed 22. September 1914. Housed Serbian and Italian POWs and Serbian civilian internees.
• Aschach an der Donau, Housed Serbian and Montenegrin POW officers and soldiers and civilian internees.
• Drosendorf internment camp
• Grossau internment camp
• Heinrichsgrün (today: Jindřichovice Czech Republic), formed beginning of June 1915, received first internees 17. June 1915. Housed Russian, Italian, Montenegrin and Serbian POWs and Montenegrin and Serbian civilian internees.
• Illmau internment camp - in the Waldviertel
• Katzenau - The largest internment camp in the territory of the monarchy, located on the right bank of the Danube near Linz, was used as an internment camp for civilians after Italy entered the war.
• Karlstein an der Thaya internment camp
• Kirchberg an der Wild internment camp - in the Zwettl district
• Markl internment camp - In Windigsteig in the Waldviertel region
• Neulengbach internment camp
• Sittmannshof internment camp - located near Loibes in Lower Austria's Waldviertel region between 1915 and 1916.
• Steinklamm internment camp - located in the municipality of Rabenstein an der Pielach in Lower Austria.
• Thalerhof internment camp - Between 1914 and 1917, around 30,000 people from Eastern Europe (mainly Ukrainians) were interned in the Thalerhof camp near Feldkirchen, south of Graz.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Doboj

Hungary

• Arad (today in Romania)
• Sopronnyék (today: Samersdorf, Austria), formed on 5. April 1915. Housed Serbian and Montenegrin POWs and civilian internees, including underage children.
• Boldogasszony (today: Frauerkirchen, Austria), formed in February 1915. Housed Russian, Italian, Romanian, Serbian and Montenegrin POWs and Serbian and Montenegrin civilian internees.
• Budapest
• Cegléd
• Csót
• Esztergom
• Győr
• Kecskemét
• Kenyérmező
• Nagymegyer (today Veľký Meder Slovakia)
• Nezsider - The Nezsider concentration camp in Hungary, about 17,000 internees, mostly from Serbia and Montenegro, were held throughout the war.
• Tápiósüly (today part of Sülysáp) - internment camp for civilians, including women and children, 45 km East of Budapest

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnian war

In a UN report, 381 out of 677 alleged camps have been corroborated and verified, involving all warring factions during the Bosnian War.

Bulgaria

World War I (Bulgaria)

During World War I, Bulgaria was part of the Central 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 in Bulgarian occupied Serbia.

• Dobritch (Bazargic)
• Gorno Panicherevo - Located near Stara Zagora, holding prisoners of war and Serbian civilian internees, including women, children, a French school teacher and 84 Orthodox priests (according to Red Cross inspection of 11 May 1917)
• Haskovo - This prison camp held both Serbian prisoners of war and civilian internees, including women, children, and priests.
• Orhanie (today called Botevgrad) held both prisoners of war and civilian internees, mostly Serbian but also Russian.
• Philippopolis - The camp was established on the site of a former cholera hospital and incarcerated approximately 5,250 Serbian, British, and French with a majority of Serbian civilians.
• Rakhovo (today Slovakia)
• Sliven - Sliven held approximately 19,900 Serbian, Romanian, Russian, British, and French prisoners, including sixteen Serbian Orthodox priests.
• Sofia - The Bulgarian army maintained three prison camps around the city, holding a total of 20,000 prisoners of war and civilian internees.
  • Camp 1 - Mostly French prisoners
  • Camp 2 - Mostly Serbian prisoners
  • Camp 3 - Mostly Serbian prisoners with some Russians, Romanians and Italians

Bulgarian occupied Serbia

• Niš
• Struga (today North Macedonia) - In Bulgarian-occupied province of Monastir in southwestern Serbia.

Cambodia

The totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge régime established over 150 prisons for political opponents, of which Tuol Sleng is the best known. According to Ben Kiernan, "all but seven of the twenty thousand Tuol Sleng prisoners" were executed.

Canada

World War I (Canada)

Ukrainian Canadian internment

In World War I, 8,579 male "aliens of enemy nationality" were interned, including 5,954 Austro-Hungarians, including ethnic Ukrainians, Croats, and Serbs. Many of these internees were used for forced labour in internment camps.

Camps and relocation centres elsewhere in Canada

There were internment camps near Kananaskis, Alberta; Petawawa, Ontario; Hull, Quebec; Minto, New Brunswick; and Amherst, Nova Scotia.

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, including Leon Trotsky, cleared land around the experimental farm and built the pool in Dickey Park.

World War II (Canada)

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 both fascists (including Canadians such as Adrien Arcand who had negotiated with Hitler to obtain positions in the government of Canada once Canada was conquered), Montreal mayor Camillien Houde (for denouncing conscription) and union organizers and other people deemed to be dangerous Communists. Such internment was made legal by the Defence of Canada Regulations, passed 3 September 1939. Section 21 of which read:

The Minister of Justice, if satisfied that, with a view to preventing any particular person from acting in a manner prejudicial to the public safety or the safety of the State, it is necessary to do so, may, notwithstanding anything in these regulations, make an order directing that he be detained by virtue of an order made under this paragraph, be deemed to be in legal custody.

Internment of Jewish refugees

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 the Isle of Man, and 2,300 were sent to Canada, mostly Jews. They were transported on the same boats as German and Italian POWs. They were sent to camps in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec provinces where they were mixed in with Canadian fascists and other political prisoners, Nazi POWs, etc.

German Canadian internment

During the Second World War, 850 German Canadians were accused of being spies for the Nazis, 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 in Camp Petawawa were from a migration in 1876. They had arrived in a small area a year after a Polish migration landed in Wilno, Ontario. Their hamlet, made up of farmers primarily, was called Germanicus, and is in the bush less than 10 miles (16 km) from Eganville, Ontario. Their farms (homesteads originally) were expropriated by the federal government for no compensation, and the men were imprisoned behind barbed wire in the AOAT camp. (The Foymount Air Force Base near Cormac 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 German Nazi agents.

756 German sailors, mostly captured in East Asia were sent from camps in India to Canada in June 1941 (Camp 33).

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 of Port Arthur, Ontario in April 1941.

Italian Canadian internment

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 Canadian War Measures Act was immediately enacted by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Named the Defence 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.

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 by RCMP 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 pronounced enemy aliens.

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". Such remarks reflected a large proportion of the population who had negative views of the Italian communities. A Gallup 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.

Japanese Canadian internment and relocation centres

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 the British Columbia Interior and in the neighbouring province of Alberta.

Camps and relocation centres in the West Kootenay and Boundary regions

Internment camps, called "relocation centres", were at Greenwood, Kaslo, Lemon Creek, New Denver, Rosebery, Sandon, Slocan City, and Tashme. Some were nearly-empty ghost towns when the internment began, others, like Kaslo and Greenwood, while less populous than in their boom years, were substantial communities.

Self-supporting centres in the Lillooet-Fraser Canyon region

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 the Lillooet 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 and Tashme, on the Crowsnest Highway east of Hope, 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 named Devine, 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 at Fountain, while those at Minto and Minto Mine and those at Bridge River worked for the railway or the hydro company.

Channel Islands

Alderney in the Channel Islands was the only place in the British Isles where the Germans established concentration camps during their Occupation of the Channel Islands. In January 1942, the occupying German forces established four camps, called Helgoland, Norderney, Borkum and Sylt (named after the German North Sea islands), where captive Russians and other East Europeans were used as slave labourers to build the Atlantic Wall defences on the island. Around 460 prisoners died in the Alderney camps.

Chile

• Concentration camps were used during the Selk'nam genocide.
• Concentration camps existed throughout Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s. An article in Harvard Review of Latin America reported that "there were over eighty detention centers in Santiago alone" and it gave details of some. Information on detention centers is included in the Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (Rettig report).

Some of the detention centers in Chile in this period:

People's Republic of China

Laogai

Laogai (Chinese: 劳改; pinyin: Láogǎi), the abbreviation for Láodòng Gǎizào (劳动改造), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labour and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Láogǎi is different from láojiào, or re-education through labor, which was the abolished administrative detention system for people who were not criminals but had committed minor offenses, and was intended to "reform offenders into law-abiding citizens". Persons who were detained in the laojiao were detained in facilities that were separate from those which comprised the general prison system of the laogai. Both systems, however, were based on penal labour. The system has been estimated to have caused tens of millions of deaths and it has also been likened to slavery by its critics. The memoirs of Harry 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 the Chinese Communist Party have argued that Wu far overstates the present role of Chinese labor camps and ignores the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the 1970s.

There are also accusations that Chinese labor-camps 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.

Falun Gong

There have been reports of Falun Gong practitioners being detained at the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital, or at the "Sujiatun Concentration Camp". It has been alleged that Falun Gong practitioners are killed for their organs, which are then sold to medical facilities. The Chinese government rejects these allegations. The US State Department visited the alleged camp on two occasions, first unannounced, and found the allegations not credible. Chinese dissident and executive director of the Laogai 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.

Tibet

Xinjiang

As of 2018 at least 120,000 members of China's Muslim Uyghur 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. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as many as 1 million people have been detained in these camps, which are located in the Xinjiang region. 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.

Croatia

World War II (Croatia)

An estimated 320,000–340,000 Serbs, 30,000 Croatian Jews and 30,000 Roma were killed during the Independent State of Croatia, including between 77,000 and 99,000 Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Jews and Roma killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Yugoslav wars

• Kerestinec prison
• Lora prison camp, Split
• Ovčara camp

Cuba

Cuban War of Independence

After Marshal Campos had failed to pacify the Cuban rebellion, the Conservative government of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo sent out Valeriano 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 his concentration camps.

He was made governor 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 the American Civil War campaign of General 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 the Second Boer War and later evolved into a designation to describe the concentration 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 like William Randolph Hearst.

Weyler's strategy also backfired militarily due to the rebellion in the Philippines that required the redeployment by 1897 of some troops already in Cuba. When Prime Minister Antonio 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 conciliatory Ramón Blanco y Erenas.

Rule of Fidel Castro

Military Units to Aid Production were forced labor concentration camps which were established by Fidel Castro's communist 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. Those who refused to sign the confessions were physically and psychologically tortured.

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.

"Social deviants" such as homosexuals, vagrants, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious missionaries were imprisoned in these concentration camps, where they would be "reeducated".

Czechoslovakia

Penal work camps for the Czechoslovak Uranium Mines [cs] There was a large set of the prisoner work camps modeled on the form of GULAG between 1945 (yes, even before 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état) and officially from 1949 to 1961, which were providing (for seriously reduced price) most of the Uranium required for the Soviet atomic bomb project. Roughly 65,000 prisoners went through these camps, roughly half of the political ones. Conditions in the mines were completely horrible, average life expectancy was decreased to around 45 years, in some plants (like The Red Tower of Death [cs]) most of the workers later died from the radiation sickeness (mostly cancer).

Denmark

Before and during World War II

• Horserød camp – established during World War I as a camp for war prisoners in need of treatment, it was used during World War II as an internment camp. It is now an open prison.
• Frøslev Prison Camp – established during World War II as an internment camp by the Danish government in order to avoid deportation of Danish citizens to Germany. Used after the war to house Nazi collaborators and later students of a continuation high school located inside the camp.

After World War II

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. Known camps were

• Dragsbæklejren – a base for seaplanes, later converted into an internment camp for refugees. It is now used by the army
• Gedhus – located on an area which now is home to Karup Airport
• Grove – located on an area which now is home to Karup Airport
• Rye Flyveplads – a small airfield in Jutland
• Kløvermarken – is now a park in Copenhagen
• Oksbøl Refugee Camp – now belongs to the Danish Army
• Skallerup Klit – was developed into an area for summer houses

Finland

Finnish Civil War

In the Finnish 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 largest prison camps were Suomenlinna (an archipelago just offshore from the center of Helsinki), Hämeenlinna, Lahti, Viipuri, Ekenäs, Riihimäki and Tampere. The Senate made the decision to keep these prisoners detained until each person's guilt could be examined. A law for a Tribunal 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.

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 and Spanish 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. 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, 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 by Väinö Tanner. In 1973, the Finnish government paid reparations to 11,600 persons imprisoned in the camps after the civil war.

World War II (Continuation War)

When the Finnish Army during the Second World War occupied East Karelia from 1941–1944, which was inhabited by ethnically related Finnic Karelians (although it never had been a part of Finland—or before 1809 of Swedish Finland), several concentration camps were set up for ethnically Russian civilians. The first camp was set up on 24 October 1941, in Petrozavodsk. 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. 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:

• 13,400 – 31 December 1941
• 21,984 – 1 July 1942
• 15,241 – 1 January 1943
• 14,917 – 1 January 1944

France

Devil's Island

The Devil's Island was a network of prisons in French 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.

Algeria

During the French conquest of Algeria, which began in 1830 was and fully completed 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. The conquest led to the deaths of between 500,000 and 1 million of an estimated 3 million Algerians from famine, disease, and war. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830,"

During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the French military created centres de regroupements (regrouping centres), which were built settlements for forcibly displaced civilian populations, in order to separate them from National Liberation Front (FLN) guerilla combatants. According to civil servant Michel Rocard, 1,000,000 Algerians were sent to regrouping camps (including children).

In 1959, Michel Rocard denounced the appalling conditions of many of those camps in a report, leaked and published in Le Monde. As a consequence the camps were modernized and became part of a large rural renovation program called Les Milles Villages (One Thousand Villages).

Spanish Republicans

After the end of Spanish Civil War, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies. Hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad, especially to France and Mexico. On the other side of the Pyrenees, refugees were confined in internment camps of the French Third Republic, such as the Rieucros Camp, Camp de Rivesaltes, Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions (mostly soldiers from the Durruti Column). The 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs were divided into four categories (Brigadists, pilots, Gudaris and ordinary Spaniards). The Gudaris (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 in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for "purification".

After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round-up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirables", they were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. About 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp

Vichy France

During World War II, The French Vichy government ran what were called "detention camps" such as the one at Drancy. Camps also existed in the Pyrenees on the border with pro-Nazi Spain, among them Camp de Rivesaltes, Camp du Récébédou, Camp Gurs and Camp Vernet. From these, the French cooperated in deporting about 73,000 Jews to Nazi Germany.

In addition, in areas which Germany formally annexed from France, such as Alsace-Lorraine, concentration camps were built, the largest being Natzweiler-Struthof.

The Vichy French also ran camps in North and West Africa, and possibly French Somaliland and Madagascar. 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:

• Conakry
• Timbuctoo
• Kankan
• Koulikoro, Mali
• Dakar

North Africa:

• Sfax
• El Kef
• Laghouat
• Geryville.

Also camps connected to the Laconia incident:

• Mediouna (near Casablanca)
• Qued-Zen, Morocco (near Casablanca)
• Sidi-el-Avachi, Morocco (near Azemmour)

The following camps which are under investigation:

• Taza
• Fes
• Oujda
• Sidi-bel-Abbes
• Berguent
• Settat
• Sidi-el-Ayachi
• Qued Zem
• Mecheria

The camps at Conakry, Timbuctoo, and Kankan had no running water, no electricity, no gas, no electric light, no sewers, no toilets and no baths. The prisoners (mainly British and Norwegian) 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".

Germany

German South West Africa, 1904–1908

Between 1904 and 1908, following the German suppression of the Herero and Nama in the Herero and Namaqua genocide, survivors were interned at the following locations in German South-West Africa (now Namibia):

• Shark Island Concentration Camp
• Windhoek Concentration Camp
• Okahandja Concentration Camp
• Karibib
• Swakopmund Concentration Camp
• Omaruru

World War I (Germany)

In World War I male (and some female) civilian nationals of the Allies caught by the outbreak of war on the territory of the Germany were interned. The camps (Internierungslager) included those at:

• Ruhleben, for up to 4,500 internees, on a horse race-track near Berlin.
• Holzminden in Lower Saxony, for up to 10,000 internees.
• Havelberg, in Saxony-Anhalt, for 4,500 internees, including nearly 400 British Indians.
• Celle Castle in Lower Saxony.
• Rastatt Camp, for French civilians.

Nazi era

On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic's weak coalition government. Although the Nazi party (NSDAP) was in a minority, Hitler and his associates quickly took control of the country. Within days the first concentration camp (Konzentrationslager), at Dachau, 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 later Nazi concentration camps. It was quickly followed by Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen which became a facility for the training of SS-Death's Head officers in the operation of concentration camps.

Theodor Eicke, commandant of the Dachau camp, was appointed Inspector of Concentration Camps by Heinrich 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 the annexation of Austria in 1938, Mauthausen; finally in 1939 Ravensbrück (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 or Arbeitskommandos to house them. The use of common criminals as Kapo, 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 of Cracow University arrested in November 1939. Auschwitz-I and Stutthof 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 and Fort 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. Many of these intellectuals were held first in Gestapo 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 in Ghettos that were walled off parts of cities. All the Jews in western Poland (annexed into the Reich) were transported to ghettos in the General 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 hold Romani people from Bohemia 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 of Janowska concentration camp, Salaspils camp, Ninth Fort and Vaivara concentration camp. During this period, Jewish soldiers and civilians were systematically executed by the Einsatzgruppen of the S.S. that followed the front-line troops. At the Wannsee 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. To accomplish this special Vernichtungslager (extermination camps) were organized. The first was Chełmno in which 152,000, mainly from the Łódź ghetto, were killed. The method for carrying out mass murder was tested and perfected here. During 1942 and 1943 further camps Auschwitz-Birkenau II, part of Majdanek, Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibor 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 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 the Labor 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 were Eastern Europeans, were enslaved in the German war economy inside the Nazi Germany. 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 of lapanka in Polish, or rafle 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 special Arbeitserziehungslager, German for worker re-education camp (abbreviated to AEL and sometimes referred to as Straflager). These punishment camps were operated by the Gestapo and many of the inmates were executed or died from the brutal treatment.

Finally there was one category of internment camp, called Ilag 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 the Third 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. In East Germany the communist government used prison camps to hold political prisoners, opponents of the communist regime or suspected Nazi collaborators.

• Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre

Hong Kong

World War II (Japanese)

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:

• Sham Shui Po – A concentration camp was maintained here for most of the duration of the Second World War.
• Stanley Internment Camp – Located primarily on the grounds of St. Stephen's College. Shortly after surrendering, the Imperial Japanese Army broke into the St. Stephen's (which had served as a military hospital during the battle) and murdered the wounded soldiers of the Allied forces. The Japanese later merged the college with part of Stanley Prison to form the full Stanley Internment Camp.
• Stanley Prison – Located primarily in the Officer's housing blocks at the prison. During the Japanese occupation, the grounds of the prison were used as part of Stanley Internment Camp. Nearly 600 prisoners of war and civilians, killed by the Japanese during the occupation, are buried in the nearby Stanley War Cemetery (which is NOT part of the prison itself but adjacent to it).

India

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:

World War I (India)

• Ahmednagar, also for internees from German East Africa; Sections A abysmally overcrowded with more than 1000 inmates in "medically condemned" old barracks and B for privileged (read: monied) prisoners and officers. In 1915 a parole camp was set up.
• Diyatalawa (Ceylon)
• Belgaum for women; set up late 1915; March 1917: 214 inmates
• Kataphar for families

World War II (India)

• Ahmednagar (Central Internment Camp) inmates transferred to Dehradun February 1941.
• Diyatalawa (Ceylon). Aliens from Ceylon, Hong Kong and Singapore. Many German sailors, 756 of them sent to Canada in June 1941 (Camp 33); other males to Dehradun, females to parole camps, when camp was closed 23. February 1942
• Deolali from February 1941, later also transferred to Dehradun. 11 August 1941: 604 Germans.
• Dehradun main camp for males from September 1941. Sensibly separated in Wings 1: pro-Nazi, 2: anti-Nazi, 3: Italians. From this camp the SS mountaineer Heinrich Harrer escaped to Tibet.
• Yercaud for females from Madras Presidency. Summer 1941: 98 inmates, closed late 1942.
• Ft. Williams (Calcutta), army camp, closed early 1940, males were sent to Ahmednagar, females to Katapahar parole camp.
• Camp 17 initially in Ramgarh (Bihar), from July 1942 at Deoli (Rajputana). For the surviving internees from the Dutch Indies.
• Hazaribagh: in then Bihar; now in Jharkhand
• Smaller Parole Camps at Naini Tal, Kodaikanal and Katapahar (near Darjeeling), were all closed by late 1942. Inmates transferred to (family reunions) to the camps near Poona:
  • Satara from May 1940
  • Purandhar (lower Fort), initially for Jewish refugees, later also other Germans, many missionaries with families. In August 1945 116 Germans (45 children, 19 missionaries), 26 Italians (5 children), 68 other nationals (11 children)

Most internees were deported late 1946. Germans shipped to Hamburg were sent to the former Neuengamme concentration camp for de-Nazification.

Sino-Indian War

During the Sino-Indian War in 1962, the Indian government interned and incarcerated 3000 Chinese-Indian civilians in the desert internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, built by the colonial authorities in 1942 as a POW camp for Japanese, German, and Italian prisoners of war during the Second World War. The Indian government has not apologised or offered compensation to the internees as of 2020.

Ireland

HMS Argenta, during the 1920s, was a vessel used by the British government as a military base and prison ship to hold Irish Republicans as part of their internment strategy.

By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men on Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough. This was supplemented with internment at other land-based sites such as Larne workhouse, Belfast Prison and Derry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouse held 542 men without trial at the highest internment population level, during June 1923.

Conditions on the prison ship Argenta 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 the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

World War II (Ireland)

During World War II, known in Ireland as the "Emergency", "K-Lines" was the part of the Curragh 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, held republicans who had a suspected link to the IRA.

Later in the war, Gormanston Camp, near Balbriggan, 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.

Isle of Man

World War I (Isle of Man)

During World War I the United Kingdom government interned male citizens of the Central Powers, principally Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey in this crown dependency. They were held mainly in internment camps at Knockaloe, close to Peel, and a smaller one near Douglas.