User:TG802810/sandbox

= Taylor's Sandbox =

still attempting
cat world war II

Doing citations is so much fun

Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and annexes Ethiopia.

Establishment
Although there are records of Herero prisoners-of-war being held in Lüderitz bay as early as 1904, the first references to a camp at Shark Island and the transfer of large numbers of Herero prisoners from Keetmanshoop are in March 1905.[11] From early on, large numbers of Herero died in the camp, with 59 men, 59 women and 73 children reportedly dying by late May 1905.[12] Despite this high initial rate of mortality on the island which, with its cold climate, was unsuitable for habitation, particularly for people used to the dry, arid climate of the veld, the German authorities continued to transfer people from the interior to the island, ostensibly because of a lack of food in the interior, but also because they wished to use the prisoners as labour in constructing a railway connecting Lüderitz with Aus. One account from Swakopmund in 1905 discusses a group of Herero informed that they were to be sent to Lüderitz. Out of fear, one prisoner attempted to commit suicide through drilling his fingers into his neck. The camp conditions further explain why the Herero deeply feared Shark Island.

Conditions at the camp
Word quickly spread among the Herero of the conditions at the camp, with prisoners in other parts of German South-West Africa reportedly committing suicide rather than be deported to Lüderitz due to the stories of harsh conditions there in late 1905.[15] The Cape Argus, a South African newspaper, also ran stories describing terrible conditions at the camp in late September 1905. One transport rider who was described as having been employed at the camp in early 1905 was quoted as saying:"The women who are captured and not executed are set to work for the military as prisoners ... saw numbers of them at Angra Pequena (i.e., Lüderitz) put to the hardest work, and so starved that they were nothing but skin and bones [...] They are given hardly anything to eat, and I have very often seen them pick up bits of refuse food thrown away by the transport riders. If they are caught doing so, they are sjamboked (whipped).[16]"August Kuhlmann was one of the first civilians to visit the camp. What he witnessed shocked him as he described in September of 1905:"A woman, who was so weak from illness that she could not stand, crawled to some of the other prisoners to beg for water. The overseer fired five shots at her. Two shots hit her: one in the thigh, the other smashing her forearm...in the night she died."Of the photographs taken on Shark Island by the German officers, most of them show the prisoners being humiliated often representing German domination. The German officers published some of the photographs as postcards often captioning the photographs with visual forms of schadenfreude. One of Lieutenant Düring's photographs captures a young boy with his stomach bloated due to malnutrition staring at the ground.

As in other Namibian camps, rape was common on Shark Island. The sexual exploitation of women was often celebrated. Many cases of rape of prisoners by Germans were reported at the camp.[17] Although some of these cases did result in the perpetrator being successfully punished where a "white champion" took up the victim's cause, the majority of cases went unpunished.[18]

Other factors such as minimal food rations, uncontrollable diseases, and maltreatment led to high mortality rates. Prisoners typically received a handful of uncooked rice. Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly. Prisoners were concentrated in large, unsanitary living quarters with low medical attention. Beating occurred frequently as the German officials often used the sjambok to force prisoners to work.

Closing
Conditions on Shark Island circulated through Berlin through Berlin by November 1906. The decision to terminate the camp was not the result of an end to extermination policy, but due to the shift in the balance of political power. Power shifted from German colonialism advocates Governor Friedrich von Lindequist and Governor Oskar Hintrager to Major Ludwig von Estorff. The decision to close the camp was made by Major Ludwig von Estorff, who had signed the agreement under which the Witbooi (a Nama tribe) had surrendered to the Germans, after a visit to the camp in early 1907.[25] Von Estorff had opposed the policies of von Trotha. After the closing of the camp, prisoners were transferred to an open area near Radford Bay. Whilst mortality rates were still high initially in the new camp, they eventually declined.

Death toll
The precise number of deaths at the camp are unknown. A report by the German Imperial Colonial Office estimated 7,682 Herero and 2,000 Nama dead at all camps in German South-West Africa,[26] of which a significant portion died at Shark Island. A military official at the camp estimated 1,032 out of 1,795 prisoners held at the camp in September 1906 having died, it is estimated that eventually only 245 of these prisoners survived. In December 1906, an average of 8.5 prisoners died per day. By March 1907, according to records that do exist, 1,203 Nama prisoners had died on the island. The over-all figure for deaths at the camp has been estimated as being as many as 3,000.[27]Combined with deaths amongst prisoners held elsewhere in Lüderitz bay, the total may well exceed 4,000.[28]

Deputy Governor Hintrager conducted a census of the Name in the beginning of 1908. He recorded 13,000 alive in the colony compared to the prewar population estimated at about 20,000. The Herero people met a similar fate as their population had been decimated from about 80,000. Eighty percent of their prewar population had either been killed or driven out of the colony.

The vast majority of these prisoners died through preventable diseases such as typhoid and scurvy exacerbated by malnutrition, over-work[29] and the unsanitary conditions in the camps.[26] The German garrison itself and commander von Zulow used the name "Death Island" for the camp.[14][30]