Part 1: Concentration Camp and
Prison Camp similarities
Imagine being captured and sent to a
prison camp in your own country where you were stripped of your humanity and
treated as lesser of a person. Today, something like that would be considered
unthinkable and inhumane. But during the Civil War, many of our nation's
soldiers were confined in prison camps, often times left to die. Two well known
and horrendous were Andersonville Prison and Camp Douglas. I didn’t know much
about Civil War prison camps, other than both the Union and Confederacy had
them. So, intrigued to learn more, I set out to answer my own question about
what the conditions were like for the prisoners at Andersonville and Camp
Douglas, and if one was worse than the other. I was already predicting that the
conditions wouldn’t be pleasant, since they were the enemy’s prisoners in a
time of war. I assumed that the prisoners would be subjected to harsh treatment
by the guards, but wasn’t prepared for the shocking things I discovered while
doing my research.
This
topic relates to class because we have been currently studying the Civil War.
This topic has interested me because I recently read the book Night by Elie Wiesel in English class.
It is a biography that tells the story of Elie who was deported to a Nazi
concentration camp for being Jewish. I wanted to see what similarities and
differences I would find between Civil War prison camps and Nazi concentration
camps.
