Frightening sight: British concentration camps of the last century. Photo

The world’s first concentration camps.

The word “camp” usually associated with the Nazis, but the camps of the Third Reich was not the first in history. During the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902) African Boer republics against the British Empire, the Turks built a huge “concentration camp” – it was then and there this term. Contained in the camps of up to 200,000 villagers, thousands of whom died. There was no gas chambers, people were dying of hunger and various diseases.

The rural population kept in concentration camps to prevent assistance to guerrillas during the fighting. In the camps contained up to 200 000 prisoners, including white Afrikaners (Boers), descendants of Dutch colonists, French and German origin.

Most of the inmates of the British concentration camps were women and children (1901)

There was established a separate camp for indigenous Africans. Photo: South African men move railroad tracks, while singing (1901)

Drills arrive in a concentration camp (1901)

In total, we created 45 camps for Boers and 64 for indigenous people

At the train station. The people took home with them in sacks all the necessary.

A concentration camp in Barberton. The supply of the camps were delivered extremely bad: thousands of people died because of the harsh conditions.

A concentration camp in Johannesburg. The men manoeuvre the unit for boiling water.

Poor nutrition, poor hygiene and overcrowding in the camps led to famine and diseases, including: measles, typhoid and dysentery

The concentration camp in Bloemfontein, 1901. In the concentration camps killed about 30 thousand Boers and 20 thousand indigenous people.

During the war the camp was visited by a British activist Emily Hobhouse. It showed the British public all the horrors of the concentration camps. Soon after, the British improved conditions in the camps, and the mortality rate of prisoners has considerably decreased.

Camp for South Africans in Klerksdorp

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