Hutchinson Internment Camp

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Houses on the south side of Hutchinson Square

Hutchinson Internment Camp was a British internment camp in Douglas ( Isle of Man ) during World War II, also known as the "camp of artists" thanks to the flourishing artistic and intellectual life of its internees.

Place and structure

Douglas, Isle of Man, location of Hutchinson Camp

The camp consisted of 33 houses around Hutchinson Square near Broadway in Douglas on the Isle of Man. Because of excessive overcrowding, the internees had to share beds. One of these houses, Arrandale, became the camp's infirmary .

The camp commandant, Major H. O. Daniel, was a popular leader and enabled much of the camp's creative activities.

history

After the houses had been requisitioned and two barbed wire fences were erected around the site (in the manner of Mooragh Camp in Ramsey , opened in May), Hutchinson Camp opened in the second week of July 1940. At first there were only 415 internees, but by the end of July the number had risen to 1205, almost exclusively Germans or Austrians.

The number decreased from September 1940 after the release of internees who were not seen as a threat to Britain . This was particularly pronounced in Hutchinson Camp, where there was an unusually high proportion of Jewish and anti-Nazi internees.

In order to use it as a POW camp in the future , Hutchinson Camp was closed in March 1944 and its 228 inmates were transferred to Peveril Camp in Peel .

Camp life

A collection of over 150 photos, taken around 1940/1 mostly by Major H. O. Daniel, preserved by Klaus Hinrichsen and now freely accessible in the Tate archive, gives a vivid impression of the camp and its facilities, life and art in the camp as well of individual internees.

Duties

The houses of the camp formed separate administrative units in which the internees worked as leaders, kitchen and cleaning staff, carers and cooks. Although these positions were set up by the British guard according to military models, in Hutchinson Camp the military designation "camp captain" was replaced by "camp leader" or "camp father". As far as possible, the role of cook was exercised by the trained cooks in the camp. The other internees only had to prepare the fresh regional products for cooking. As a result, the internees learned to appreciate the kipper (kippers) as a local Manx specialty , called " Yom Kippur " by some in the camp .

employment

Hutchinson Square

After initial distrust at the beginning of the war, the internees were also allowed to work outside the camp, especially in the local agriculture . In addition, they returned to their old jobs in the camp. In addition to professions such as tailor and hairdresser , the case of a Viennese baker who made cakes for sale in the “artist café” in the washroom of a house was remarkable. Artists could also sell portraits and other works.

Sports

As in the other camps on the island, the internees did a lot of sport. The various camps formed a soccer league in which Hutchinson also played; most of the games were played at Onchan Camp , which had a place on the premises. Internees were also allowed out under guard and swimming in Douglas Bay. On such excursions, the guard paid special attention to one of the few British-born Italian internees who had competed for Great Britain at the 1936 Berlin Olympics . He had brought his team shirt with him to the island and defiantly wore it in the camp as a protest against his internment. Another sporting activity in Hutchinson is the game of boules on the green in the middle of the camp, with the lack of real boules with brass balls from the bed frames of the camp.

moral

The internees went out of their way to make the most of, and even enjoy, their internment at Hutchinson Camp. However, this was often only faked to hide a deep feeling of depression. Helmuth Weissen later commented that "internment ... was a continuous torment." This feeling arose from the frustration and helplessness about the internment and its duration as well as the indignation about the injustice, especially among those internees, whether Jewish or not, those before it Escape to Great Britain had already suffered in Nazi concentration camps.

This latent depression was perhaps most evident in the case of Kurt Schwitters , who many believed was having a wonderful time revealing his depression to his son behind closed doors. In fact, his mental state even brought his epilepsy back on again, which had not happened since he was a child.

“For the outside world he always tried to put up a good show, but in the quietness of the room I shared with him […], his painful disillusion was clearly revealed to me. […] Kurt Schwitters worked with more concentration than ever during internment to stave off bitterness and hopelessness. "

“He always tried to give a good introduction to the outside world, but in the quiet of the room I shared with him [...] his painful disappointment was clearly revealed to me. [...] During the internment, Kurt Schwitters worked more concentrated than ever before to avert bitterness and hopelessness. "

Creative activities

university

Street on the south side of Hutchinson Quare

The camp was blessed with an abundance of academic and creative talents who were only too willing to teach and learn in the camp environment where they had little else to fill their time. Similar to earlier transit camps, they set up a “camp university” within a few weeks of the camp opening. This was located in a building on the north side of the square, referred to as the “lecture hall” in a camp map that was published in an issue of The Camp . When the weather was good, lectures were held on the lawn or, during smaller courses, in the inmates' rooms.

The university harnessed the talent of scientists , mathematicians , lawyers , philosophers , writers, artists, linguists and many others. in addition to the artists and musicians who offered individual lessons in their rooms or studios. In addition to these traditionally qualified lecturers, there were some other unusual ones, such as:

“A lion tamer who was unlucky to be born in Germany while the circus was over in that country. He was one of the first to be released, as his wife could not handle the lions by herself. [...] He always carried a small lasso and for a party trick he used to pick flowers with that lasso. His talks were always well attended as he had been out to Africa to capture the animals before actually training them. ”

“A lion tamer who was unfortunately born in Germany while his circus was performing in this country. He was one of the first to be released because his wife could not tame the lions on her own. […] He always wore a small lasso, and as a party trick he used to pick flowers with this lasso. His lectures were always well attended because he had been to Africa to catch the animals before he actually trained them. "

This positive spirit of learning is well described by Fred Uhlman in his memoir:

“Every evening one could see the same procession of hundreds of internees, each carrying his chair to one of the lectures, and the memory of all these men in pursuit of knowledge is one of the most moving and encouraging that I brought back from the strange microcosm in which I lived for so many months. "

“Every evening you could see the same procession of hundreds of internees, each carrying his chair to one of the lectures, and the memory of all these people in search of knowledge is one of the most moving and encouraging that I have brought with me from the strange microcosm that I have lived in for so many months. "

The Camp magazine

Hutchinson Camp produced its own newspaper, The Camp . The paper was written in English by and for the internees. It contained reviews and stories as well as editorial and news from inside and outside the camp. The first edition appeared on September 21, 1940. Despite the abundance of artistic talent in the camp, the sheet contained no images, in contrast to the Onchan Pioneer , which was produced in Onchan Camp further north on Douglas Bay.

There were also other ad hoc publications of the internees' work. An example of this was Kurt Schwitters' short story The Flat and the Round Painter , which was published in English translation by another internee and distributed in the camp.

art

Klaus Hinrichsen , chronicler and head of the camp's cultural department, in a portrait created there by Kurt Schwitters

Hutchinson Camp was famous for its flourishing artistic life, not least because of its many important and well-known artists. The art created in the camp spanned a variety of media and genres: figurative sculptures, painting of the new objectivity, graphics, expressionism, Dadaism, naive art, and engraving. Klaus Hinrichsen, who headed the camp's cultural department, later remarked that the camp represented almost all styles that were suppressed in the Third Reich at the time.

An art exhibition was held in one of the buildings in the first month after the camp opened. Their success led to a second exhibition in November 1940, in which artists like Kurt Schwitters showed their work, often in the hope of selling it to other internees for a modest price. This was supported by the artistic production speed of internees like Fred Uhlmann, a self-taught naive artist who created almost one work a day. Kurt Schwitters, perhaps the most important artist in the camp, created over 200 works during his 16-month internment, including more portraits than at any other time in his artistic career.

This type of creativity put pressure on the camp's facilities and resulted in a drastic shortage of art supplies, at least in the early days of the camp. This led to a great deal of ingenuity, such as making paint from brick flour with oil from sardine cans, digging for clay during excursions to make sculptures, and tearing up linoleum floors to make linocuts out of the pieces for printing pulled by the hot iron.

In addition, there was an insatiable consumption of materials such as wrapping paper, government toilet paper, and wallpaper torn from the walls, and the resulting empty spaces on the walls provided space for murals. The engraver Hellmuth Weissenborn started a trend in the warehouse by scratching pictures in the dark blue paint on the window panes, which were used to darken air raids at the time of the war. The pictures created by Weissenborn and then also by others showed landscapes, flowers and erotic depictions of women. Schwitters enriched the range of ideas of the internees with sculptures made from porridge:

“The room stank. A musty, sour, indescribable stink which came from three Dada sculptures which he had created from porridge, no plaster of Paris being available. The porridge had developed mildew and the statues were covered with greenish hair and bluish excrements of an unknown type of bacteria. "

“The room stank - a musty, sour, indescribable stench of three Dada sculptures made of porridge for the lack of plaster of paris. The porridge was moldy, and the statues were hairy green and covered with bluish secretions of unknown bacteria. "

Later, the conditions for the artists improved considerably thanks to the understanding attitude of the camp commandant Major H. O. Daniel, who procured materials for the internees and assigned rooms as studios to some of them, such as Kurt Schwitters and Paul Hamann. In places like these, they were able to host students who benefited greatly from close and intensive contact with such leading artists.

music

Major Daniel also exercised his influence in promoting music in the camp, for example by getting instruments for the internees. A camp orchestra was soon established under the direction of Prof. Kästner, allegedly a nephew of Thomas Mann . Works by composers such as Bach , Mozart , Schubert , Beethoven and Brahms were particularly popular.

One of the most famous musicians in the camp was the concert pianist Marjan Rawicz . Like other artists and musicians in the camp, Rawicz also gave performances there. It was rumored that in preparing for such a concert, Rawicz examined every single one of the eleven pianos that existed in the homes of Hutchinson Camp. When he played one of them, the piano literally broke in two. The other camp inmates immediately rushed on it and “cannibalized” it for their own purposes: painters used wood as a painting surface, the metal strings were used by the technical department as electrical cables, and a dentist used the ivory buttons as a material for dentures.

theatre

The theater business also flourished in the camp, with performances in all sorts of places. A production of John Steinbeck's Von Mäusen und Menschen (Of Mice and People) was reported, which was played in front of twenty spectators crowded into a bedroom, and skits such as a parody of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , but about a homosexual relationship between "Romeo and Julian".

The camp also saw performances that some consider to be among the earliest examples of performance , such as Kurt Schwitters' 40-minute, Dadaist phonetic poem Ursonate . The piece turned out to be so popular with some camp inmates that the refrains were temporarily modified to greet them in the camp. Schwitters was also responsible for other Dadaist readings and performances, from formal poetry readings to his fondness for sleeping under his bed and barking repeatedly like a dog.

POW camp

After Hutchinson Camp was closed as an internment camp in March 1944, it was converted into quarters for prisoners of war . The renovation took a long time, as the original house furnishings were not used for this, but these were stored and replaced with newly made furniture. In addition, the barbed wire fence was reinforced, watchtowers were built and the guards were reinforced.

On November 22, 1944, around 5,000 German prisoners of war arrived on the Isle of Man, many of whom were sent to Hutchinson Camp. This was the first of many additions for the camps on the island, now collectively referred to as the 171 POW Camp .

The prisoners had left the camp by August 4, 1945. By November 24, tenants and owners of homes at Hutchinson, Onchan and Mooragh camps had been notified that their property had been released and they could move back in.

Known internees

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Freddy Godshaw: Internment Camp 1940-41 . BBC . November 26, 2004. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  2. ^ Connery Chappell: Island of Barbed Wire . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 978-0-552-12712-7 , pp. 95 .
  3. ^ Photograph of Camp Commandant, Captain Daniel, in his office at Hutchinson Internment Camp 1940 . Tate Archives. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b Chappell 1986, p. 53
  5. ↑ Chappell 1986, pp. 90-92
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Sarah MacDougall, Rachel Dickson: The Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45 . April 10, 2010. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  7. ^ A b c d Paul Francis: WWII Internment Camps in the Isle of Man . Airfield Research Group. July 15, 2011. Archived from the original on February 1, 2017. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 17, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.airfieldresearchgroup.org.uk
  8. ^ Photographs of Hutchinson Internment Camp, Isle of Man (c.1940-1) . Tate Archives. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Adrian Glew: Klaus Hinrichsen - Wartime internee who championed émigré artists in Britain . The Guardian . July 28, 2004. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  10. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 82
  11. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 102
  12. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 120
  13. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 121
  14. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 84
  15. ^ Ernst Schwitters: Letter . In: Art and News Review, Vol X, No. 20, p. 8 . October 25, 1958.
  16. ↑ Fred Uhlman in his autobiography, cited in Chappell 1986, p. 81
  17. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 145
  18. ↑ Kurt Schwitter: Lucky Hans and other Merz Fairy Tales . Ed .: Jack Zipes. Princeton University Press Group, 2009, ISBN 978-0-691-13967-8 , Translator's Note on History, "The Flat and the Round Painter," pp. 231 .
  19. ↑ Chappell 1986, p. 146
  20. ^ Schwitters in Britain (Exhibition guide) . Tate Britain. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  21. ^ Kurt Schwitters: Postcard featuring an image of 'Portrait of Fred Uhlman' . Tate Archives. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  22. ^ HO Daniels: Photograph of blackout window carved with images of animals at Hutchinson Internment Camp (c.1940-1) . Tate Archives. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  23. ↑ Fred Uhlman, quoted in Arifa Akbar: Pop Art pioneer is back in the picture . In: The Independent . January 27, 2013. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  24. ↑ a b Suzanne Snizek: Music in British Internment Camps . World LOCATION . Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  25. ^ Klaus E. Hinrichsen: Visual Art Behind the Wire . In: David Cesarani, Tony Kushner (Eds.): The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain . Routledge, London 1993, ISBN 978-0-7146-4095-2 , pp. 188-209 .
  26. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Fred Uhlman: Memories of a Stuttgart Jew , 1992, register
  27. ↑ Cf. Figurations No. 37 (July 2012), Newsletter of the Norbert Elias Foundation, p. 7, norberteliasfoundation.nl (PDF)
  28. ↑ Ana Pago: Gritos de guerra e morte no traço de Erich Kahn ( pt ) In: Diário de Notícias . Global Notícias. May 7, 2005. Archived from the original on November 29, 2006. Retrieved on October 28, 2019.