Most Allied prisoners of war (POWs) were treated well compared to inmates of concentration camps. But, as former Dutch POW Captain Boullard explains here at Dachau concentration camp, some were subject to severe beatings and forced to work in harsh labor assignments.
We, uh, they told us, the court told us, that we would be treated as political prisoners, but, they put us in a camp among burglars and thieves—German burglars and thieves—and they were our Kapos, our commander, commanders in work. And we were in the beginning, we were beaten over our heads, and later on, you have to be very careful not to be put in the punishing company. I have been in the punishment company. And I had to, uh, carry on the hill, the mountain, the...a very heavy, uh, box ... every day six weeks long, and after that rolling big stones the whole way. Only the help of a young friend of mine saved me from dying.
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