Wauwilermoos internment camp

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 (Luzern). 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.

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

Starting in 1943 Switzerland attempted to shoot down American and British aircraft, mainly bombers, overflying Switzerland. Six aircraft were downed by Swiss Air Force fighters and nine by anti-aircraft cannons; 36 airmen were killed. In addition there were 137 emergency landings during the war. The officers were interned in Davos, airmen in Adelboden. The representative of the US military in Bern, US military attaché Barnwell R. Legge, instructed the soldiers not to flee so as to allow the US Legation to co-ordinate 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 camps were often detained in the Wauwilermoos prison camp near Luzern.

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