Internment camp in India

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The British government erected during both world wars detention in India for "enemy aliens" ( Enemy Alien ) ; that is, for civil nationals of nations at war with Great Britain. In most cases they were Germans.

First World War

Immediately after the news of the declaration of war reached India (August 10), all hostile foreigners had to report to the police on a daily basis.

Ahmednagar

Ludwig Zietz wrote from Ahmednagar on December 7, 1914

The German missionaries from India and most of the German civilians deported from German East Africa were housed in Ahmednagar (often also: Ahmadnagar) .

The camp was initially divided into sections A and B under military administration, and at the end of 1915 the Parole Camp was added under civil administration. On March 7, 1917, 1621 people, 452 of them soldiers, mostly sailors, were in custody.

Camp A was overcrowded with over 1000 people in two dilapidated barracks blocks. The buildings had been declared medically condemned by military doctors . Many prisoners had to live in army tents that were far too small, eight of them, exposed to the climate in the courtyard. There was food from the bucket, 300 prisoners shared a tap. Corrugated iron barracks, unsuitable for the climate, were later built. By 1917 there were 130 showers (for 1500 men). Attempts to make contact between the individual camps and the outside world were punished.

In the B camp there were better-off prisoners, such as engineers, well-off merchants, ship officers and officers who had been captured in East Africa. They were hardly guarded, had servants from camp A and the exit in the area from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. The huts, in which 43 men lived, measured 50 × 20 m. Bed, box and chair were made available, other items had to be made by oneself. By 1917, a tap was placed in every hut. Three British doctors and 19 German nurses worked in the hospital, which had five wards and a laboratory. Convalescents were sent to Dagshai (near Shimla ) in the summer .

The Parole Camp, which was set up in an artillery barracks outside the city 1¼ year after the outbreak of war, was better set up, but was only set up for about 100 elderly people (from 45, after 1915 over 55) and missionaries. At the turn of 1915, 625 of the civilians on the Golconda , which left Calcutta on November 17th and Madras on November 24th, were repatriated via Holland. The ship was designed for 100 passengers in peacetime. In April 1916, more than 500 people were repatriated from Bombay with this ship .

Harassment, theft of Red Cross packages and arbitrary disciplinary punishment by the guards were commonplace in both camps. The canteen was of a parsing operation, the enriched himself extensively. The internees were expelled in 1919 and banned from entering the country for five years - something that would repeat itself for some Protestant missionaries during World War II.

Belgaum

The women who remained in Bombay were asked to report to Belgaum by October 30, 1915 . The statement by the Bombay Times that the barracks was well equipped was not shared by the ladies, so initially there were no beds. In March 1917, 214 Germans and Austrians were interned. The camp commandant was the retired Colonel MA Halliard. The camp was divided into two sections, Alexandria and Victoria . Inmates could go out in the vicinity until 10 p.m., in the morning there was roll call.

Katapahar

In March 1917 there were 36 civilians in Katapahar who were allowed to move freely in the area during the day, but they had to go to roll calls three times a day.

Dyatalawa

In the mountains of Ceylon, a camp that had already been used to house prisoners from the Boer Wars was re-established. It was then used again as such in the Second World War.

Second World War

The legal basis for internment in India was the Registration of Foreigners Act 1940 (II of 1940) in conjunction with the Foreigners Order and Enemy Foreigners Order issued in 1939 . The men were arrested on September 4, 1939. The German women were not interned when the war broke out and they were arrested in the summer of 1940. The 150 German women and children who remained in British India were in seven parole camps set up by the British authorities across the country . The only camps in the real sense were Satara and Purandhar Fort. The 756 German seamen interned in British India were brought to Canada in June 1941 (to Camp 33 ).

At the beginning of May 1940 the numerous Germans living in the Dutch East Indies were interned. The women were allowed to travel to Japan, where 700 lived in 1945. The men were deported to India in late 1941.

On January 20, 1942, Japanese bombers sank the Dutch ship Van Imhoff , the crew made off in the lifeboats. The Dutch Bollogan , who came to the rescue, refused to save the Germans, 411 were killed and 65 survivors made it to the island of Nias .

Alfred Leber and Heins von Have were among those housed in India . In the men's camps, the National Socialists were separated from their opponents by separate departments.

Finances

Class A interns (initially self-payers, Rs . 3 per day) were allowed to dispose of Rs. 250 of their own assets per month and class B prisoners received a meal rate of initially 50, from 1941 80 Rs. In addition, there were 20 Rs. For purchases in the Storage kiosk. (Price examples 1941: packet of cigarettes (20) up to 0.3 rupees, 50 cigars up to 2 Rs, packet with 100 g tobacco 2 Rs. 1 dozen oranges or bananas 0.6 Rs, soap 0.4 Rs, shaving cream 0, Rs 13, 1 bottle of fruit juice Rs 3). Needy Reich Germans indirectly received pocket money of 10 RM (13 Rs .; 1 R = 74–77 ₰ ) from the Reich through the German Orient Association and the protecting power , which was paid out quarterly. In August 1942 the following items had the following prices: woolen sweater Rs. 6.3, a pith helmet Rs. 1.80, shirt Rs. 5, sandals Rs. 6, a pair of socks Rs. 0.15. Due to the war-related shortage, prices fell 1943. The internees received the same meal rates as the British troops in British India. In addition, there were 3½ annas (17 ₰) per day to buy additional food. A special camp fee was circulated in some camps.

Mail as interned mail was free of charge. Inmates were allowed to write two censored letters a week. From 1941, the exchange of mail went fairly smoothly. Airmail from Baghdad has been possible since 1942 against payment of a fee in Germany. Packages and “gifts of love” - mediated by the Red Cross from Germany - were also possible.

Ahmednagar

In Ahmednagar , a central internment camp was set up again for men in September 1939 . After the internment policy initially led to some dismissals, internment practice was tightened with the start of the decisive battle in the West.

At the beginning of the war, only enemy men were interned centrally here; many women were able to return to the German Reich in the spring of 1940. For many, the Central Internment Camp was a transit station on the way to Dehradun , or, if they had families, to the Parole Camps from 1942 onwards .

They were accommodated in narrow 8-man tents or in barracks of 56 men. There were two sanitary barracks with four showers and 20 wash basins each and one barrack with 12 bathtubs that could be used once a week. The camp hospital was run by imprisoned doctors, the dentist was Italian. At the end of September 1940, 505 German nationals were interned here. Own warehouse paper money was issued, in denominations from 1 Anna to 10 rupees . There was a library, football and tennis courts. The inmates were transferred to Deolali by truck on February 23, 1941 .

Ft. Williams

In the Ft. Williams of Calcutta, the comers were divided into Class A (self-pay, 3 Rs. Per diem) and Class B (at state expense). All Germans opted for B. Lagerleiter, as a liaison to the commandant, was a Herr von Kamecke. They were accommodated in 8-man tents. There was an open water hole to cleanse the body. At 7 o'clock in the morning there was roll call at which internees were called by number. After the administration of the camps was transferred from the military to the police in 1940, most of the men were transferred to Ahmadnagar.

In May 1940, 17 women and 5 children were temporarily accommodated in the camp, and in June they were relocated to Katapahar (southwest of Darjeeling ) in primitive bungalows. By 1941 the number of those interned there rose to 29 male emigrants, 34 women and 5 children.

Dehradun

The camp Premnagar of Dehradun was opened in September 1941, the occupants of Deoli were laid in October there. At the end of October 1942, 765 Reich Germans (i.e. pro-Nazi) were interned there, the number of German inmates rose to 2050 (excluding Jews) by the end of the year.

The camp was divided into sections (wings) . Wing 1 was for Nazis. In Wing 1 there was still a distinction between class A and B, although class A was no longer valid for self-payers, but for 20 elderly and sick people who were better accommodated and fed in single or double rooms. This camp, like the Deolali camp , was under the leadership of I.-G. Farben employees and NSDAP regional group leader Dr. med. Oswald Urchs . Newcomers were given the choice of whether they wanted to be placed in the pro or anti-Nazi section. With good guidance, and especially in later years, inmates were allowed to leave the camp between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., but the inmates of Wing 1 were only allowed under armed supervision.

Wing 2 for opponents of the Nazis, refugees etc. In Wing 3 there were around 270 elderly and sick internees, mostly from the Dutch East Indies. Buddhist monks of German origin from Ceylon, such as Nyanatiloka , Nyanaponika , Nyanakhetto and Anagarika Govinda , who had already taken British citizenship , were also admitted . Wing 4 was used to detain Italians.

They were accommodated in brick barracks, 14 in Wing 1 with low overhanging thatched roofs. The long, narrow buildings had verandas and were designed for 40 men. Furniture, except for the beds, had to be made by yourself. Kitchen duty was rotated under the barracks on a daily basis. SS member Heinrich Harrer and NSDAP member Peter Aufschnaiter , both mountain climbers, escaped from this camp to Tibet.

The sanitation was simple. Baths were not set up until later years. More serious cases of illness are treated by two German doctors in a camp hospital that was outside the internment camp. It consisted of sick barracks, an isolation barrack, and another barrack, in which the operating room etc. and the dental department were housed, and a hospital kitchen. Difficult cases of illness were brought to the modern military hospital in Dehradun.

Deolali

The camp set up in part of a military base in February 1941 was inspected by the Swiss consul in March and judged to be completely inadequate. The situation improved somewhat by May. On August 11, 1941, 604 German men from all over India were interned there. The German Nazi camp leader was, as before for the Dehradun camp , Dr. med. Oswald Urchs. Italians had their own department. Service personnel were not available.

They were housed in brick barracks. There was a canteen for shopping. There was a sports field outside the camp. Payable excursions under guard took place three times a week for 50 men each. The inmates were transferred to Deoli on July 21, 1942.

In Deolali (see below) there was also a prisoner of war camp. In October 1941, 600 men were transferred to Dehradun, individual husbands to their wives incarcerated in Satara or Purandhar.

Diyatalawa

The Diyatalawa camp on Ceylon was reopened after the outbreak of war ; it was 5 km from Bandarawella . In addition to the Germans living on the island, some from Hong Kong and Singapore and German sailors who were brought down from the Japanese steamer " Asama Maru " were imprisoned here. In July 1941 the occupancy was "apart from a few Italians, 67 German men and 16 German women with 12 children ... also a smaller number of Jews ..."

The camp had eleven corrugated iron barracks, each about 35 m long and 7 m wide, for 40 men each, which were surrounded on three sides by wide verandas. Three barracks (No. 1, 2 and 7) were used to house married couples. One served as a common room. At first there was hardly any furniture, and the sanitary facilities and catering were initially inadequate.

The camp guard consisted of two British officers and NCOs as well as 150 native soldiers. The internees were represented by a seven-person committee with the "Reichsdeutscher" Kottmeier as the speaker. Twice a day, 1½ hour walks were permitted under guard.

The camp was closed on February 25, 1942 when the Japanese began bombing the island, and the inmates were taken to the mainland.

Yercaud

The camp in the mountain village of Yercaud was the assembly point for women and children who lived in the Madras presidency . Some Italian citizens and 40 Jews who had emigrated from Germany were also housed there. The total number of internees was 98 in the summer of 1941. The Indian government had rented 23 bungalows that were shared by a family or 3–4 individuals. House arrest was ordered between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. Internees received Rs. 70 to support themselves, children Rs. 30. They were also allowed to attend local schools.

Satara

The camp ( location ) in the small town of Satara , almost 100 km south of Poona , was set up in an old cantonment (barracks). The commanding officer was the Anglo-Indian Captain EA Fern, a police officer. Like all women's camps, it was called the Parole Camp . Initially, 18 women, five Jewish men and 18 children were housed there in 1940. The inmates were given access to shop in the nearby bazaar (chapter 14) and up to 3 km in the vicinity.

In the summer of 1942, additional barracks with eight rooms each, each occupied by two people, were built and the inmates of smaller camps, including many internees from Ceylon, were housed here as part of family reunions. The overcrowded camp has now been divided into three parts, with a section set up for Italians. The other two sections were the Family Parole Camp and the German Wing for Nazis. The latter were only given exit under guard. A total of 26 nationalities were represented among the inmates.

In the camp there was a school with a German teacher who taught fifty children (1943) up to the 4th grade, and later up to the 6th grade with help. Older children were sent to boarding schools in Panchgani , with parents receiving Rs. 30 living expenses from the British. The Tibet researcher Prof. Wilhelm Filchner was in this camp with his daughter Erika Schneider-Filchner from mid-September 1941 to November 1946.

Purandhar

Gate of Purandhar Fort today

Opened in July 1940 located camp in Lower Fort of Purandhar was as segregated camp established for Jews and later as Family Camp Parole referred. Wilhelm Filchner was here with his daughter Erika Schneider-Filchner until September 13, 1941. He describes the camp as follows: This camp, located in the mountains of the West Ghats, can be reached by post bus from the garrison town of Poona in an hour and a half and is located on the Terrace of an island-like, steep mountain ridge that rises about 500 meters above the plain. A couple of long, high barracks, divided into little rooms, and many houses and villas make up the camp. They were all inhabited by people of mixed nationalities and of both sexes, including married couples. Only those Germans were accommodated here who were believed not to engage in subversive activities. Initially there were around 100 refugees, mostly Jewish, of whom 20 were qualified as doctors or dentists. Later mainly Protestant missionaries with families were accommodated.

At the turn of the year 1942/43, more Lutheran missionary women from Satara arrived. They had been separated from their husbands, who were later transferred by Dehradun and Ahmadnagar. After the attack on Iran , nationals from occupied countries who had worked in Iran were also brought in. In addition, some Germans came from the Dutch East Indies . Several children were born in the camp.

The first camp commandant in the first year was an elderly Indian, the medic Colonel Purandah Shah (IMS), who had been senior physician at the Bellary POW camp during World War I and who is described as sociable. His successor was AS Holland, a retired police officer. A three-person camp committee was formed. The prisoners were allowed several hours a day to walk in the hills on which two old forts were located. Sick people were taken to the Victor Sassoon Hospital in Poona .

The camp initially consisted of bungalows and was equipped for 100 people, in 1942 additional barracks were built.

In August 1945 there were still:

  • 116 Germans with 45 children, including 19 missionaries
  • 26 Italians with 5 children
  • 68 other nationals with 11 children

The camp was closed in June 1946 after discharges had taken place from March, although some inmates were initially sent back to Satara.

An inmate published a memoir on the nearby unexplored caves after the war.

Further

In 1941 seven women were interned in Nainital (about 200 km south of Delhi). 11 women from Madras were found in Kodaikanal . Both camps were closed in autumn 1942. As part of the family reunification demanded by the Red Cross, the inmates came to Satara or Purandhar.

In Mhow Cantonement, 30 km southwest of Indore , there was a temporary collection point for German civilians from the region shortly after the outbreak of war.

Camp 17 ( Ramgarh Cantonment in Bihar ) was set up as a transit camp for those arriving from Sumatra . Many inmates, with the exception of the sick, were not all forwarded directly to Dehradun as planned, but instead were brought to Deoli ( Ajmer ), also called Camp 17 , in July 1942 . Accommodation took place in spacious stone barracks of 40 men each. This camp was mainly designed for Italian prisoners of war who had fought in North Africa. Since the beginning of 1942, Japanese were also housed here, who were detained as civilians in the Malay colonies before the advancing Japanese army could liberate them. The transfer of the German and Italian civilians to Dehradun took place on April 13, 1943.

In June 1942 there were 36 women, 5 men and 16 children, including 21 women and 13 children, who had come from Diyatalawa on February 25, 1942, in the Parole Camp Hazaribag . There was Indian staff. In autumn these women and children moved to one of the family camps.

Expelled in 1945

In the summer of 1945 it was decided that all "enemy foreigners" should be expelled to their home countries. Exceptions were only made for a few long-term residents of India, for whom high-ranking Indian personalities had campaigned, and for spouses of British people, and at the request of Mahatma Gandhi for Wilhelm Filchner . On November 27, 1946, the Dutch ship Johan van Oldenbarnevelt left Bombay with several hundred Germans on board, separated from the passengers of Allied nations . In Mombasa still 1,200 Italian prisoners of war were taken on board, resulting in extreme narrowness. The ship reached Hamburg on December 26, the passengers were, at temperatures around -20 ° C, for review in the transit camp on the grounds of the former Neuengamme concentration camp in the internment camp Neuengamme brought where the external conditions since the takeover by the British had changed little at first (Chapter 17). In this only transit camp in the British occupation zone in Hamburg-Neuengamme , the newly arrived were questioned and checked for membership in the NSDAP / AO as well as for espionage activities. Most of the passengers were able to leave the camp a few days later after the inspection. Those who had belonged to the NSDAP / AO or who were suspected of spying were transferred to the Neuengamme internment camp.

1962 to 1967

After the Indo-Chinese border war was quickly decided in favor of China in 1962, the Indian government saw a fifth column in the Chinese diaspora, which consists of around 50,000 people . The internment of thousands was ordered on the basis of the Defense of India Act 1962 .

An Association of India Deoli Camp Internees (AIDCI) has been active in Ontario, Canada since the 1980s and is supported by around 300–500 Chinese who have migrated to Canada because of the discrimination.

Deoli

From the end of 1962 onwards, up to 3,000 Chinese civilians were interned in the still preserved camp of Deoli (Rajasthan). Some of the prisoners, most of them brought from the tea-growing regions of Assam and Calcutta, traveled there in the following years on Chinese invitation. The last releases did not take place until the beginning of 1967. Most of those who were “released” to their areas of origin were locked up in local prisons until 1968 after they were transported. The former inmates were excluded from public service positions and had to meet reporting requirements. The Indian Custodian of Enemy Properties for India manages expropriated property .

The warehouse buildings will still be standing in 2020. The Central Industrial Security Force uses parts as training barracks.

Assam

Since 2008, and increasingly since 2011 and 2018, people who were refused to certify their Indian citizenship when the list of all citizens was drawn up - a good 1.9 million inhabitants in the state of Assam - have been detained by order of the Foreigners Tribunal of Assam or the border police. Originally only planned for short pre-trial detention, indefinite detention has been the norm since 2018. Accommodation is in the prisons of Dhibrugarh , Silchar , Tezpur , Jorhat , Kokrajhar and Goalpara . At the latter location, a separate camp, the Matia Camp, was completed for 3000 inmates in 2020 . The 2.6 hectare site is enclosed by two walls, the inner one is 1.80 meters high, the outer almost seven meters (20 feet). It is also expressly intended to lock up primary school children. Dismissals on bail are possible if two "reliable" persons deposit 100,000 rupees each and those who have been identified report to the police every week.

Further warehouses are under construction or in planning in 2020.

literature

Archival material
  • British Library: Lists of names (excluding Japanese), WK II: IOR / L / PJ / 8/34 Coll 101 / 10AB
  • ICRC picture archive: 1) Dehradun 1944: VP-HIST-03480-…; Pictures of the Chinese internees in Deoli: Signature: VP-CIIN-E…

Individual evidence

  1. Jump up ↑ National Archives, Kew: Foreign Office: Prisoners of War and Aliens Department: General Correspondence from 1906 FO 383/277, FO 383/436
  2. ^ A b c d Reports on British prison-camps in India and Burma, visited by the International Red Cross Committee in February, March and April, 1917; London (1917)
  3. ↑ Hermann Gäbler: Review of difficult days. From: Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt , Leipzig 1917, pages 42 to 46 and pages 53 to 58.
  4. ↑ The Golconda was built in 1887–1888 by William Doxford & Sons, Sunderland, and named after the Indian fortress town of Golkonda . She drove on behalf of the Indian government and was destroyed by a sea ​​mine in 1916 while returning to India in the North Sea . 19 people died.
  5. ↑ Literature: Chapter: Journey on the Golconda. In: Hermann Gäbler: Review of difficult days. From: Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt , Leipzig 1917, pages 42 to 46 and pages 53 to 58. - Else Gäbler: Our war experiences. In: Braunschweiger Volkskalender 1918. pp. 31–41. - Expelled from the mission field. A war experience of the Leipzig Mission. Edited by Mission Director Carl Paul. Publishing house of the evang.-luth. Mission, Leipzig 1916.
  6. ↑ a b E. F .: Before and after the outbreak of the First World War in India: memories of a German woman.
  7. ↑ Section after: A. Hübener, Prisoners of War in India
  8. ^ Registration of Foreigners Act: full text
  9. ↑ a b c Rudolf Tauscher, War Memories
  10. ↑ a b c d AA 3rd leaflet (July 1941)
  11. ↑ List of names ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) 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. of those victims who had been imprisoned in Japan between 1914 and 1919  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / biographien.tsingtau.org
  12. ↑ Burdick, Charles; The Expulsion of Germans from Japan 1947-1948; TAJS 4th Ser
  13. ↑ Heekeren, C. van; Batavia Seint Berlyn; The Hague 1967
  14. ↑ a b c d e AA; 4th or 5th leaflet ... (Sept., Dec. 1941)
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g AA 6. Leaflet (Dec. 1942)
  16. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.numismondo.com
  17. ↑ a b Tucher, Paul v .; German Missions in British India Nationalism; Grafflham 1980 (self-published)
  18. ↑ 3. Leaflet ... p. 8
  19. ↑ 5. Leaflet ... p. 12
  20. ^ Wilhelm Filchner: A researcher's life. Eberhard Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1950. pp. 368–378.
  21. ^ Wilhelm Filchner: A researcher's life. Eberhard Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1950. p. 372.
  22. ↑ Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Bombay Province; Tucher (1980), p. 16.
  23. ↑ Inspection of the camp from 21.-24. August 1945; Delegations from the Comite International in the cinq continents; in: Revue International du Croix Rouge, No. 322 (Oct. 1945), p. 747
  24. ↑ Hermann Götz; Purandhar: It's Monuments and their History; in: Annals of the Bhadakar Oriental Research Institute (Poona), Vol. 30 (1950), Pt. III-IV
  25. ^ Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): The exhibitions. Bremen 2005, p. 134.
  26. ↑ AIDCI (published 2020-08-15).
  27. ↑ As a border region for foreigners restricted according to the Foreigners (Restricted Areas) Order, issued in January 1963, and the Foreigners Law (Application and Amendment) Act. The first law defines a "Chinese" as: "who, or either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents, was, at any time, a Chinese national."
  28. ↑ Ma, Joy; D'Souza, Dilip; Deoli wallahs: the true story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian internment; New Delhi 2020 (Macmillan); ISBN 9789389109382 ; [an "oral history"]
  29. ^ India's Forgotten Chinese Internment Camp , 2013-08-09.
  30. ↑ a b Deoli: Where Chinese prisoners were kept during 1962 war , 2020-06-13.
  31. ↑ Millions in India Could End Up in Modi's New Detention Camps (2020-05-25).
  32. ↑ Information on the documentary Diaries from a Detention Camp .
  33. ↑ India's 1st Illegal Immigrant Detention Camp Size Of 7 Football Fields
  34. ↑ Corresponds roughly to the gross annual amount of an engineer. [1]
  35. ↑ Where are detention centers in India? (2020-01-01).

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