Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « World War, 1939-1945 – Prisoners and prisons, Italian »

Abstract The article looks at the Southern Rhodesian government’s efforts to implement the 1929 Geneva Convention’s provisions in establishing and administering internment camps during Second World War, despite the fact that the convention did not apply to civilian internees. The article contends that, although the Southern Rhodesian government was committed to the Geneva Convention of 1929, which specified the guidelines and norms for the treatment of prisoners of war, this was fraught with ambiguities. This was partially due to the fact that internees were not initially considered prisoners of war and also because the pro-British Southern Rhodesia white community had conflicting feelings towards Germans and Italians. Hence, although the Geneva Convention obliged capturing states to adhere to certain norms, there was a limit to how far Southern Rhodesia could go in terms of executing these stipulations. This article is based on archival documents from the National Archives of Zimbabwe.

Both the anthropological school of Lombroso, established in the late half of the 19th century, and the sociological school established by Ferri and other criminologists ( Liszt, Prins, van Hammel, Tarde) met with a keen interest in Poland. However, the anthropological school was criticized, as it was the case in other countries too, both by the classical school of penal law, and from the sociological point of view. A critical analysis of the views of Lombroso and his successors was made by the leading representative of the classical school of penal law in Poland in those days Krzymuski who postulated that recognition of the individual’s free will to be condition of his penal liability, Krzymuski opposed free will to be conception of a born criminal propagated by Lombroso. Lombroso’s theory was also criticized by Krzywicki, a sociologist and anthropologist who considered the former’s approach towards the conditions of crime to be too narrow, leaving out of account those resulting from the social and economic conditions. On the other hand, Polish criminologists considered it to be Lombroso’s unquestionable merit that he had called attention to the necessity of studying the offender's personality, and in this way initiated the modern criminology. Opinions of various sociological schools were discussed in the Polish literature and accepted by the majority of authors starting from the close of the 19th century. In particular, the most accepted one was the opinion that offence is a result of both individual and social factors, and the aim of punishment meted out by the court should be not only to deter. the perpetrator from committing offences, but also to reeducate him. Due to the fact that in the 19th-centuiy judicial practice the sentence depended on the extent of damage caused by the offender, it was emphasized in the Polish literature that punishment should take into consideration also the offender's individual features, as it is only then that it can fulfil its tasks (Stebelski). With the accepted division of offenders into professional and causal, the fact was stressed that - if the offender reveals a tendency to relapse into crime- the measures the society applies towards him should be more drastic since the society has to defend itself against incorrigible criminals in an effective way. Instead, more lenient measures should be applied towards causal offenders, such measures being sufficient for their reeducation. In the period between the two world wars, criminology in Poland became a separate branch and extended its range; the establishment of the Polish Criminological Society in 1921 and of the Department of Criminology at the Free Polish University in 1922, later (I932) transformed into the Criminological Institute, contributed to this situation. The Polish criminology of that period faced the task of studying and defining in detail the basic factors of crime: individual (endogenous) and social (exogenous). This was related to the necessity to learn about the sources of crime with the aim of its effective control by means of preparing a Penal Code and properly shaping the criminal policy (Wróblewski). When studying the individual factors of crime, particular attention was paid to the psychopathic personality. Criminal psychopaths were believed to suffer from a pathological moral defect resulting from their underdevelopment in the sphere of emotions. It was stated that psychopaths who committed an offence should not be recognized as mentally irresponsible (Nelken). Psychopathy cannot be treated psychiatrically; on the other hand, intensified resocialization of the offender is necessary here, conditions for this treatment created during his prison term. At the same time, an adequate segregation of prisoners should be applied based on the psychopathological criterion (Łuniewski). The science of the offender's personality was called criminal biology; it dealt with the physical and mental structure of the offender. Criminal biology was to make use of the general anthropological, psychological and psychiatric data as well as those gathered by means of other clinical methods. Aimed at gathering comprehensive data concerning the whole of the offender’s mental and physical properties, criminal biology should not confine itself to a mere specification of his various traits: it should also study their origin, methodically examining the development of these properties in the milieu in which the offender’s personality was formed. Thus the criminal-biological research must be made from the psychological and medical as well as sociological points of view. Particular importance was attached to detailed environmental research in the study of juvenile delinquents (Batawia). In the early Thirties, the Ministry of Justice initiated criminological- biological research in prisons. The research was carried out by special commissions with the use of a specially prepared comprehensive questionnaire . The greatest part was played by psychiatric and psychological examination. The criminal-biological research in prisons was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. In connection with the criminogenic role of alcoholism, criminologists spoke for a considerable reduction of production and sale of spirits. Moreover, an opinion was expressed that a commission of an offence in the state of a normal (the so-called physiological) intoxication should not result in the recognition of the offender as mentally irresponsible. Only pathological intoxication may be considered from the point of view of irrespossibility. The offender should not avail himself of his intoxication as a mitigating circumstance (Nelken). The scientists opposed the introduction of compulsory sterilization which was to be applied toward persons whose children could inherit serious pathological traits from them. The opposition had both scientific and humanistic grounds (Łuniewski, Nelken). Compulsory sterilization was not introduced. The main trend of the Polish criminology in the period between the wars corresponded with the sociological school which took into account the relationship between the endogenous (biological) and the exogenous (social) factors in the origins of crime. A vast majority of Polish criminologists opposed the conception of a “born criminal” put forward by Lombroso. Some of the Polish scholars of the period between the wars who used the term “criminal anthropology” (e.g. Rabinowicz), emphasized the evolution of this science which differed from the Lombroso’s doctrine, and postulated the social milieu as a factor be largely taken into consideration in the studies on the causes of crime. In the Polish criminology of those days, the stress was laid principally on criminal biology due to the fact that the internal factor is usually less conspicuous and more difficult to prove than the external one in the etiology of crime. It was emphasized that not all of persons who found themselves in unfavourable social conditions turned offenders (Neymark, Lemkin); therefore, the biological (somato psychological) factor determines the individual’s moral resistance to the unfavourable external conditions. On the other hand, also the social factor, in addition to the biological one, was included in the causes of crime, due to the considerable impact of living conditions on the human mind. The opinion was that - though the etiology of an offence is usually determined by a combination of the external and internal factors - in each case one should attempt to find out which of these factors prevailed in the origin of a given act; this should also be taken into account in the criminological prognosis. In general, the chance for correction is smaller in the case of an offender of the endogenous type who requires a more thorough and longer resocialization as compared with one of the exogenous type; this should be taken into account by the court when meting out punishment (Rabinowicz, Lemkin). The Polish Penal Code of 1932 (in force till 1969) was an expression of the compromise between the classical school of penal law and the sociological school. In the code, many legal structures included in the General Part were formulated in accordance with the achievements of the science of penal law in its classical form; this concerns particularly the definition or the essence of crime and the principles of liability including that of subjectivism as responsibility for a culpable act. A compromising character was given in the code to meting out punishment which was conditioned not only by the weight of the offence according to the classical principle of retribution and deterrence, but also by the offender's personality and the life he had led hitherto according to the instructions of the sociological school (Art. 54). The discussed code did not adopt from the Italian positivism the so-called ante-criminal prevention, i.e.. the application of sanctions towards an individual who has not committed any prohibited act yet. Also indeterminate sentences were not adopted in the Code in relation to penalties and not protective measures, as this would be contradictory to the principle of individualization of punishment. Under the influence of the sociological school the Code contained of a possibility of suspension of ęxceution of the penalty, and of its extraordinary rnitigation, as well as the release from prison before the expiration of term (separately regulated by the law of 1927-) and a possibility to mete out a more severe penalty in the case of recidivists. In addition to the medical security measures, which consisted in the commitment of the offender to a mental hospital and which the court could apply towards the persons guilty of acts committed in the state of mental irresponsibility or decreased responsibility, the code introduced - basing on the postulates of the sociological school-isolating security measures applied towards the offenders whose acts were connected with reluctance to work, and towards recidivists and professional as well as habitual criminals if their staying at liberty endangered the legal order. The isolating security measures were applied together with the penalty (not instead of it), the necessity of their application connected with the ‘’ state of danger", i.e. the perpetrator's probability of commission of further offences; in the criminological literature, subjective and state of objective criteria of the danger were distinguished (Strasman). According to Art. 84 of the Penal Code, offenders of this type were committed to a special institution for at least 5 years, and the court decided after the termination of each such period whether it was necessary to prolong the commitment for the next five years. In the Penal Code of 1932, also the measures applied towards juvenile delinquents were divided into educational measures on the one hand, and commitment to a corrective institution on the other hand, depending on the juvenile's age and of his possible discernment or lack there of when committing the forbiden act.

Despite the issue of Italian prisoners of war during the Second World War receiving some significant attention, the fate of those prisoners held by the Yugoslav state has not yet been thoroughly examined. This is largely a consequence of the lack of sources, which is also why this issue has been treated superficially in the literature. The present article aims to fill this gap, focusing in particular on the repatriation of Italian prisoners of war held in Yugoslavia after the Second World War. Employing material from archives in the UK, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia and Switzerland, the author will reconstruct the process of repatriation by delving into international diplomatic circumstances and Italo–Yugoslav relations, as well as the political and ideological dynamics which affected the fate of those prisoners. The study will also provide a count of the number of Italian prisoners of war in Yugoslavia, which up to this point has been unclear.

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Stimulated by a pronouncement of Joan Beaumont that prisoners of war are a neglected subject of historical inquiry this thesis undertakes an empirical and analytical study concerning this topic. Within the context of the prisoner of war experience in the history of the 2/11th Infantry Battalion during the Second World War, it puts a case for including non-operational strands of warfare in the body of Australian official military history. To facilitate this contention the study attempts to show the reasons for which historians might study the scope and range of the prisoner of war experience. Apart from describing the context and aims of the study, the paper utilizes Abraham Maslow's theory of a hierarchy of needs to highlight the plight of prisoners of war. Amongst the issues explored are themes of capture, incarceration and recovery. Suggestions are made to extend the base of volunteer soldiers curriculum in favour of a greater understanding of the prisoner of war and an awareness that rank has its privileges. In addition to the Official Records from the Australian War Memorial, evidence for the study has been drawn mainly from the archive of the 2/11th Infantry Battalion, Army Museum of Western Australia, catalogued by the writer as a graduate student, December 1992, and military literature that were readily available in Perth. At every opportunity the men are allowed to speak for themselves thus numerous and often lengthy quotations are included.

During World War II, the Japanese earned the reputation for cruelty toward their prisoners which surpassed the treatment accorded to POWs held by Germany and Italy. The conduct exhibited by the Japanese soldier was the result of a combination of ancient social and religious traditions made manifest by twentieth century documents. Through constant inculcation of ancient myths nurtured by a national religion, the Japanese believed that their holy mission was world domination. Believing themselves to be of divine origin, they treated all other races as inferior; therefore, the POWs suffered cruelties as sub-humans. The Japanese inflicted punishment and torture in the name of their emperor, believing that they did so through divine instruction. This study reveals how they arrived at this conviction.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis narrates and analyses the experiences of a sample of South Africans who were captured during the Second World War. The research is based on oral testimony, memoirs, archival evidence and to a lesser degree on secondary sources. The former prisoners-of-war (POW) who participated in the research and those whose memoirs were studied were all captured at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 or during the fall of Tobruk in June 1942. The aim of the research is to present oral and written POW testimony in order to augment the dearth of knowledge regarding South African POW historical experience. The scope of the research includes the decision to volunteer for the Union Defence Force, the experiences in North Africa, capture and initial experiences in the so-called ‘hell camps of North Africa’, the transportation to Italy and life in the Italian prison camps, events surrounding the Italian Armistice and the consequent escape attempts thereafter. For those POWs who did not escape, the experience of captivity continued with transport to Germany, experiences in German camps, including working in labour camps and the Allied bombing campaign. Lastly, the end of the war and the experience of liberation, which in most cases included forced marches, are dealt with before the focus turns once again towards South Africa and the experience of homecoming and demobilisation. The affective and intellectual experiences of the POWs are also investigated as their personal experience and emotions are presented and examined. These include the experience of guilt and shame during capture, the acceptance or non-acceptance of captivity, blame, attitudes towards the enemy and towards each other, as well as the experience of fear and hope, which was especially relevant during the bombing campaign and during periods when they were being transported between countries and camps. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the POW experience which looks at aspects relating to identity among South African POWs. The final conclusion is drawn that the POW identity took precedence over national identity. As a result of the strong POW identity and their desire for complete freedom and desire to claim individuality, the POWs did not, on the whole, display great interest in becoming involved in South African politics after the war even though many of them strongly disagreed with the Nationalist segregationist ideologies that claimed increasing support between 1945 and 1948.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis beskryf en ontleed die ervarings van dié Suid-Afrikaners wat tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gevange geneem is. Die navorsing is gebaseer op mondelinge getuienis, memoires, argivale bewysmateriaal en, in ’n mindere mate, op sekondêre bronne. Die voormalige krygsgevangenes wat aan die navorsing deelgeneem het en wie se memoires bestudeer is, is almal in November 1941 by die Geveg van Sidi Rezegh of in Junie 1942 met die val van Tobruk gevange geneem. Die doel van die navorsing is om mondelinge en skriftelike getuienisse van krygsgevangenes aan te bied ten einde die gebrekkige kennis ten opsigte van Suid-Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes se historiese ervaring uit te brei. Die omvang van die navorsing sluit die besluit in om vrywillig diens te doen vir die Unie-verdedigingsmag, die ervarings in Noord-Afrika, gevangeneming en eerste ervarings in die sogenaamde “helkampe van Noord-Afrika”, die vervoer na Italië en lewe in die Italiaanse gevangeniskampe, gebeure rondom die Italiaanse wapenstilstand en die daaropvolgende ontsnappingspogings. Vir die krygsgevangenes wat nie ontsnap het nie, het die ervaring van gevangenskap voortgeduur deur vervoer na Duitsland, ervarings in Duitse kampe, waaronder strafkampe, en die bombarderings deur die Geallieerdes. Ten slotte word aandag gegee aan die einde van die oorlog en die ervaring van vryheid, wat in die meeste gevalle gedwonge marse behels het, voordat die fokus terugkeer na Suid-Afrika en die ervaring van tuiskoms en demobilisasie. Die affektiewe en intellektuele ervarings van die krygsgevangenes word ook ontleed, aangesien hul persoonlike ervarings en emosies ondersoek en aangebied word. Dit sluit die ervaring van skuld en skaamte tydens die gevangeneming in, die aanvaarding of nie-aanvaarding van gevangeskap, blaam, houdings teenoor die vyand en mekaar, sowel as die ervaring van vrees en hoop, wat veral belangrik was gedurende die bombarderingsveldtog en vervoer tussen lande en kampe. Die tesis sluit af met ’n ontleding van aspekte wat verband hou met identiteit onder die Suid- Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes. Die bevinding is dat die krygsgevangene-identiteit voorrang geniet het bo die nasionale identiteit. Verder het die sterk drang na volkome vryheid en die begeerte om hul individualiteit terug te kry daartoe gelei dat die voormalige krygsgevangenes na die oorlog oor die algemeen ’n ambivalensie jeens Suid-Afrikaanse politiek openbaar.

In March 1942, the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, 36th Division, surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on Java in the Dutch East Indies. Shortly after the surrender, the men of the 2nd Battalion were joined as prisoners-of-war by the sailors and Marines who survived the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Houston. From March 1942 until the end of World War II, these men lived in various Japanese prison camps throughout the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia, and in the Japanese home islands. Forced to labor for their captors for the duration of the conflict, they performed extremely difficult tasks, including working in industrial plants and mining coal in Japan, and most notably, constructing the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. During their three-and-one-half years of captivity, these prisoners experienced brutality at the hands of the Japanese. Enduring prolonged malnutrition and extreme overwork, they suffered from numerous tropical and dietary diseases while receiving almost no medical care. Each day, these men lived in fear of being beaten and tortured, and for months at a time they witnessed the agonizing deaths of their friends and countrymen. In spite of the conditions they faced, most survived to return to the United States at war's end. This study examines the experiences of these former prisoners from 1940 to 1945 and attempts to explain how they survived.

Abstract Charity ball for the Red Crescent and meeting with Mary; debating about the British; palace intrigues; strange manners of the Maharaja of U. while visiting Bhopal; discussing world-war politics; organizing a cabaret with the Begum; the Nawab playing Krishna; affairs of the Italian prisoners of war; the Nawab’s durbar and birthday.