JADE Student Edition 2019 JADE JSLUG 2019 | Seite 105

is the grotesque medical experiments carried out in
Nazi camps. There was no British counterpart to Josef
Mengele, and although medical supplies were too
often scarce in Boer camps, there was nothing akin to
the medical torture performed by the Nazi doctors.
After the war finished, the British were tasked with
the relocation of a combined total of 200,000 people
including concentration camp residents, ‘bitter-ender’
commandos, and black Africans (Biggins, 2004).
Upon leaving the camp, families were issued a tent,
bedding, and food for a month. Additionally the
British handed out farming tools, livestock, seeds, and
vehicles where available. Though this cannot be called
adequate compensation for the destruction of the
family’s property, it demonstrates a British attempt,
however small, to help the Boer families after the end
of the war. There was a sizeable campaign in Britain
invigorated by Emily Hobhouse to improve conditions
in the Boer camps and assist those interned through
donation (Seibold, 2011). Hobhouse herself is often
credited as a figure who’s campaigning brought the
issue of concentration camp standards to mainstream
British society, and her work doubtlessly helped
improve the interned Boers living conditions following
the British government’s establishment of the Fawcett
commission. The issue of the concentration camps
was an issue that before Hobhouse, the British public
were largely ignorant of. Indeed, upon Hobhouse’s
uncovering of the shoddy conditions there was a
sizeable group of the population who were outraged
and called on the government to reform. Juxtaposing
this, most Germans were aware of the atrocities
happening in the extermination camps in Poland
(Ezard, 2001). Though these two situations cannot be
directly compared. Critics of the government in Nazi
Germany were subject to government orchestrated
attacks, and in many cases were sent to concentration
camps themselves (Grigsby, 2004). This is another
factor which is seldom given due recognition, that the
governments of the countries operating the camps
were of different natures and possessed a different
set of values. The British government, seeing that
the Hobhouse report had caused a wave of outrage,
made swift efforts to improve the conditions of the
concentration camps through the establishment of
the Fawcett Commission. A commission founded
with the primary goal of reducing mortality within
the Boer camps (Raugh, 2004). To liken the British
concentration camps to those run by Nazi Germany is
to ignore and exclude the effort made by the British
government and numerous individuals in improving
conditions and attempting to reduce mortality within
these camps.
Conclusion
Is it fair to call the British administered concentration
camps a dark point in Britain’s colonial past? Yes. Is
it necessary to be aware of the terrible conditions
of these camps, and the hardships experienced by
those interned there? Absolutely. Is it fair to in any
way equate these camps with the death camps of the
Nazi regime, or liken the experience of the Boers with
that of the so-called Untermensch? Unequivocally no.
The camps administered by the British during the war
should not be an object of contemporary pride, the
actions taken by the British government during these
years caused pain still felt in South Africa today. But
to assert or imply that there is equivalence between
the two camps systems is fundamentally wrong.
One was a network of prisoner of war camps with
22,000 deaths stemming from neglect. The other
was a regimented, organized system pioneered to kill
millions, a goal in which it no doubt succeeded.
References
Primary
Hobhouse, E. 1901. To the Committee of the
Distress Fund for South African Women and Children
REPORT by Emily Hobhouse. [Online]. London:
Friars Printing Association. [Accessed 04/06/2019].
Available From: https://digital.lib.sun.ac.za/bitstream/
handle/10019.2/2530/leyds-60-7735.pdf
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