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 . 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.

Wikipedia