Internment camps in the Caribbean during the Second World War

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Military Sites Archaeology in the Caribbean: Studies of Colonialism, Globalization, and Multicultural Communities" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Caribbean was the destination of numerous people who fled from Germany and Austria after the National Socialists took power in 1933/1938. However, after Great Britain entered the Second World War, they were enemy foreigners. In the early summer of 1940, the repression against these refugees intensified and they were interned. In the Caribbean, about 15 internment camps from this period are known. In addition to extensive written documents and accounts from contemporary witnesses, archaeological investigations have been carried out since 2016 in cooperation with the University of West Indies, St. Augustine (Trinidad and Tobago) and Mona (Jamaica). Surveys and excavations were initially carried out on the Five Islands (Trinidad and Tobago), and now also in Camp Mona. While there were only a few remains on the Five Islands, the material remains in Camp Mona are still manifold. This paper will give a first overview of the archaeological investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Military Sites Archaeology in the Caribbean: Studies of Colonialism, Globalization, and Multicultural Communities   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 280