Page 44 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

546 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

where civilians could be kept. Initially – and in many cases up to the beginning of 1902, in
other words, after the Fawcett Commission investigated conditions in the camps – condi-
20
tions in the camps varied from poor
to extremely bad. Camp administration was generally poor, medical services were in-
adequate, there was a shortage of food, disease was rampant, and death was a common oc-
curence. A tragic combination of incompetence and indifference resulted in the death of more
than 50 000 white and black civilians. This led to psychological disruption and trauma
21
being inflicted on many black and white civilians. For a small nation, such as the Afrikaner
in particular, a death toll of approximately 28 000 women and children, plus approximately
6 000 burghers on commando, entailed enormously negative demographic implications for
the future. (Keep in mind that the total Afrikaner population of the Transvaal and Free State
was only about 219 000 persons.) 22
Boer civilians were not sent to internment camps primarily for what they did, but for
what they were. Although the British justifiably regarded the Boer farmsteads and Boer
23
civilians as legitimate military targets, and although the Afrikaner was correct in arguing that
the British waged war against civilians, it has to be understood that there were no intentional
attempts on the part of the British to exterminate Boer civilians in the camps – as happened
during the Second World War to the Jews in Nazi extermination camps. However, it is true
that when the camps were first erected, as well as in the course of 1901, administration was
sometimes very poor and that this – and negligence with regard to the provision of food
and medical services, for example – led to the deaths of many women and children. Thus, it
is understandable that during the war the camps were already known among Afrikaners as
“murder camps” and “hell camps”. If conditions in the white internment camps were bad,
they were, generally speaking, worse in the black internment camps; as a matter of fact, one
could regard the lack of planning and the limited supplies these camps received as criminal
neglect on the part of the British authorities. 24

20 As far as the Fawcett Commission’s report is concerned, see, for example, A.W.G. Raath, The British concen-
tration camps of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902: reports on the camps (Bloemfontein, 1999), pp. 118-172;
Report on the concentration camps in South Africa by the committee of ladies appointed by the Secretary of
State for War, containing reports on the camps in Natal, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal (Cd.
893, London, 1902), passim; M.G. Fawcett, What I remember (London, 1925), pp. 153-174.
21 See, for example, A.W.G. Raath and R.M. Louw, Die konsentrasiekamp te Springfontein gedurende die
Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899-1902 (Bloemfontein, 1991); A.W.G. Raath and R.M. Louw, Die konsentrasiekamp
te Vredefortweg gedurende die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899-1902 (Bloemfontein, 1992); A.W.G. Raath and
R.M. Louw, Die konsentrasiekamp te Bethulie gedurende die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899-1902 (Bloemfon-
tein, 1991); A.W.G. Raath, R.M. Louw and D. Olivier, Die konsentrasiekamp te Bloemfontein gedurende
die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899-1902 (Bloemfontein, 1993); J.C. Otto, Die konsentrasiekampe (Cape town,
1954); A.U. Wohlberg, The Merebank Concentration Camp in Durban, 1901-1902 (M.A., University of
the Free State, 2000); J.J. Roodt, Die Port Elizabethse Konsentrasiekamp, 1899-1902 (M.A., University of
Port Elizabeth, 1990). The most definitive study re black internment camps is that of S.V. Kessler, The black
concentration camps of the South African War 1899-1902 (D.Phil., University of Cape Town, 2003).
22 A. Wessels, “Afrikaners at war”, p. 73.
23 H. Giliomee, The Afrikaners: biography of a people (Cape Town, 2003), p. 354.
24 See S.V. Kessler, passim and S.V. Kessler, “The black and coloured concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer
War 1899-1902: shifting the paradigm from sole martyrdom to mutual suffering”, Historia 44(1), May 1999,
pp. 110-147.