Andersonville - the first concentration camp Bashny.Net

The word "concentration camp" today strongly associated with the systems of the camps of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but the first concentration camps were almost a century before, it happened in North America in the 60s of the XIX century.
The most famous of the then existing camps became Andersonville - POW camp created Southerners in Georgia during the Civil War in the United States.

Andersonville Camp, drawing: John L. Ransom, «Andersonville Diary, Escape and List of the Dead» / Library of Congress / Wikipedia.





Andersonville was a high palisade surrounded by an area of ​​10 hectares with dugouts and tents for prisoners.
As the camp took place two channels, one of which served as a sewer, the other - a source of water.
The bad economic situation does not allow southerners adequately contain the prisoners - in the camp was extremely meager food, and medical care provided to detainees barely.
An additional source of disaster was the attitude of protection, camp commander was appointed by Henry Wirz, known as a pathological sadist.
Moreover, in the struggle for existence of some prisoners organized gangs and they started to terrorize fellow sufferers.

Photo: Library of Congress / Wikipedia.
Andersonville camp.



During the existence of Andersonville from hunger and ill-treatment in the camp, killing more than 13 thousand prisoners Northerners, no less than three hundred prisoners were shot dead only because undertaken we crossed the line before the so-called "dead line".
After the defeat of the Confederacy horrors of Andersonville became leaked to the press and widely discussed in the US, the public demanded the trial of the guilty, among them high-ranking Confederates were called names.
However, the efforts of President Andrew Jackson, the charges against high-ranking officials of the South have been removed, the dock was only the former camp commandant Wirz.

Photography: A.J. Riddle / Life.
In the picture is seen one of the channels used in the camp as a sewer.



Wirtz held court sentenced as a war criminal to death, which soon took place in Washington jail before large crowds.
It is worth noting that in the South the United States still voiced the opinion that Wirz was the "scapegoat", there are admirers of his memory, in his honor, a monument and a plaque.

Photography: A.J. Riddle / Life.
Inmates waiting for food at the main gate of the camp.



In the archives of Life magazine and the Library of Congress kept a few photos of Andersonville, illustrating those early events. The photos were taken in August 1864.

Photography: A.J. Riddle / Life.
Andersonville prisoners buried the dead from hunger and disease.

via alex-hedin



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