Wauwilermoos penal camp

Wauwilermoos was an internment as well as prisoner-of-war penal camp during World War II in Switzerland, situated in the municipalities of Wauwil and Egolzwil in the Canton of Luzern. Established in 1940, Wauwilermoos was a penal camp for internees, including for Allied soldiers during World War II, 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 offenses. In addition to 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, by various contemporary reports and studies.

During World War II more than 100,000 belligerent troops, mainly Allied soldiers were interned in Switzerland. Internees from England, France, Poland and Russia, and Italians and Germans who fled combat, the Swiss government had to – unlike civilians, for instance Jews refugees, who usually were sent back to the territories occupied by the Nazi regime – keep these soldiers interned until the end of the hostilities, in line with the Geneva Convention of 1929. The soldiers were held in barracks, and they were used as workers for agriculture and industry, except the officers who not were compelled to forced labour and stayed in unoccupied mountain hotels, mainly in Davos.

Starting in 1943 Switzerland shot down American and British aircraft, mainly bombers, overflying Switzerland during World War II: six aircraft were downed by Swiss Air Force fighters and nine by anti-aircraft cannons; 36 airmen were killed. On 1 October 1943 the first American bomber was shot down near Bad Ragaz: Only three men survived. Also, there were 137 emergency landings through May 1945. The officers were interned in Davos, airmen in Adelboden. The representative of the U.S. military in Bern, U.S. military attaché Barnwell R. Legge, instructed the soldiers not to flee so as to allow the U.S. Legation to coordinate their escape attempts, but the majority of the soldiers thought it was a diplomatic ruse or did not receive the instruction directly. Soldiers who were caught after their escape from the internment camp were often detained in the prison camp Wauwilermoos near Luzern.

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