page_title: Wauwilermoos internment camp
section_title: Buildings and organisation
hierarchical_section_title: Wauwilermoos internment camp / Buildings and organisation
caption_attribution_description: Wauwilermoos internment camp, entrance area and Swiss Army guards probably in 1944, Egolzwil-Wauwil, Canton of Luzern.
context_page_description: Wauwilermoos was an internment camp and prisoner-of-war penal camp in Switzerland during World War II. It was situated in the municipalities of Wauwil and Egolzwil in the Canton of Lucerne. Established in 1940, Wauwilermoos was a penal camp for internees, including Allied soldiers, among them members of the United States Army Air Forces, who were sentenced for attempting to escape from other Swiss camps for interned soldiers, or other offences. Together with Hünenberg and Les Diablerets, Wauwilermoos was one of three Swiss penal camps for internees that were established in Switzerland during World War II. The intolerable conditions were later described by numerous former inmates and by various contemporary reports and studies.
context_section_description: The camp was under the supervision of the Swiss Army. From the beginning, Wauwilermoos had a bad reputation. The camp was guarded day and night by soldiers with dogs. In all 47 men formed the guard as of 13 February 1945. The camp was additionally secured by several rows of barbed wire.
  Within the camp sector "Santenberg" was considered a military prison, sector "Egolzwil" housed alcoholics, while the department for "difficult elements" and for repeat offenders was in the sector "Wauwilermoos". In Wauwilermoos prison camp there were both military internees and male civilian internees who had been convicted under the Swiss Military Criminal Code.
  On the 4 hectares (10 acres) site a total of 25 barracks were situated: eleven barracks with a capacity of about 550 inmates; the remaining 14 barracks were used by the Swiss camp staff. The prisoner barracks could each accommodate up to 50 people and were built from wood; they were neither insulated nor were they heated in winter. The barracks were equipped with simple beds stuffed with straw, and only officers slept on straw-filled mattresses. Sanitary facilities were basic; the latrines were simple trenches in the earth. The diet was meagre and poor. The detainees were widely lacking medical care. Even access to auxiliary packets from the Red Cross and communication by letter were denied.
  The officer barracks were designed for only 20 occupants, but had 86 by autumn 1944. As a result André Béguin explained that "he could no longer provide amenities such as sheets and shaving mirrors for officers below the rank of captain". Firewood to heat the stoves was also in short supply. In response to the Americans "who [threatened to cut] up tables and benches to keep warm", Béguin claimed surprise, and resolved that "if they behaved churlishly we could no longer treat them like officers". The commandant claimed that the allocation of firewood was greater than the quantity rationed to Swiss soldiers, a comparison used to justify many conditions around the camp.
  Béguin also claimed that "the barracks were built according to regulations, and despite their shortcomings, were 'of the same type as those used in the Army'". Officials at the US Legation in Switzerland disagreed with Béguin’s "tempered description of conditions" at the penal camp. According to Brigadier General B. R. Legge, the camp was:
  of the stockade type... surrounded by barbed wire, constantly patrolled by dogs and guards with sub-machine guns... [Conditions are] unreasonably severe, at the lowest subsistence level, and mud ankle deep.
  General Legge considered them worse than those in POW camps in Nazi Germany.
  Prior to the escape attempts of summer 1944, only a few American internees were condemned to Wauwilermoos, usually for "drunkenness and disorderly conduct" and with the tacit approval of the US legation. Once the escapes of American POWs increased, the "Swiss government sent every offender to Wauwilermoos, normally for two or three months without trial". By autumn 1944, over 100 American internees were incarcerated in Wauwilermoos, and "the Swiss government threatened to keep them there without trial for six to seven months". Many of the American internees were eventually charged in the Swiss military justice system, "an experience that forever changed their perceptions of Swiss neutrality".
caption: Entrance area guarded by two Swiss Army soldiers
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