The chances of surviving as a prisoner in ww2

During the second world war, millions of combatants were taken as prisoners by their enemies and forced to endure horrible things to survive. Over 3 million German prisoners of war were captured by the Russians alone, and less than 20% of these people survived until the war’s end. The problem with determining a survival percentage chance is the huge amount of variables, for example, when the German 6th army surrendered at the battle of Stalingrad, the total number of German prisoners held by the Russians numbered around 170,000, but just 6,000 of them survived until the end of the war, making the chances of surviving as a prisoner in WW2 captured by the Russians as about 1 in every 28 people.

( Prisoners from a Japanese camp in Siam, taken in 1943)

On the other hand, if you were Italian or German and captured by the British in the earlier years of the war, you had a survival chance of close to 100%, as long as you didn’t do something that could get you killed like trying to escape. Here are a few examples of the horrors P.O.W’s had to endure to survive until the wars end, and the chances of making it out alive.

The Burma Railway

75% chance of survival as allied prisoners, 50% as local civilian

The Burma Railway, or Death Railway as it came to be known, was one of the most famous uses of prisoners by the Japanese during their invasion of Southeast Asia. Starting in the 1930s before the Second World War even began, Japan started to invade numerous countries in Southeast Asia, and two of these were modern-day Thailand and Myanmar, formally Siam and Burma. To transport resources between their new territories, the Japanese decided to build a railway spanning 415 km (258 mi) across the two countries, and they needed a lot of people to do this.

(A photo from 1942 showing prisoners constructing a section of track)

Around 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were used alongside between 180,000 and 250,000 local civilians. The exact numbers of deaths don’t exist, as the Japanese didn’t count them, but allied records show who was there and who didn’t come home, putting the total death toll between 12,000 and 16,000. The local population was treated even worse than the Allies, and many died from disease and starvation, but since the Japanese didn’t count them there is no way of knowing how many died, but most estimates put the death toll close to 100,000 civilians.

Russian Gulag worker

up to 25% of death

A Gulag was a prison camp where the inmates were forced to perform various jobs. They existed before the war and were mostly used to mass produce basic goods, but were converted into producing things for the war effort when it began in 1939. Prisoners were forced to work and were killed if they refused, and to keep people in line, rations were only given out when someone hit their work quoter.

(inmates were forced to perform manual labor in sub-zero temperatures, just to meet their quota for food)

Extra food was available, but the prisoner would have to hit an unrealistically high target and many people worked themselves to death trying to get a little bit more food. The true numbers aren’t known as the record-keeping at these prisons was sketchy at best, but a general estimate puts the number of people who passed through them at around 18 million, with around 2 million of those dying. The conditions at all of them were bad, but none were quite as horrific as the gulag at Nazino island, which saw 4,000 of the 6,700 people sent there dying within 13 weeks.

Mauthausen Concentration Camp

50% chance of death

The reason that the concentration camp with the highest number of deaths isn’t listed here, which is Auschwitz, is because Mauthausen was mainly used for Russian prisoners of war, as opposed to an extermination camp for civilians. This camp was notorious for its cruelty and the high death rate of the inmates and is considered to be one of the worst camps of all time for living conditions. It would often exceed its capacity but just cram people onto the floor, or kill enough to make room for new prisoners.

(dozens of inmates being forced to carry supplies up the side of a mountain)

During its time in operation, the camp housed around 190,000 people, most of whom were Russian prisoners of war. Half of everyone that stayed at the camp, or its surrounding sub-camps died there, with 85,000 people being liberated at the end of the war. Most of the deaths were caused by either disease or starvation instead of direct execution, and the death rate was so high there that the local population started to complain about the bodies poisoning the water supply.

Japanese ran East Asian prison camps

30%+ chance of death

Japan did some extremely cruel things during the war, and one of the reasons for this was they had a strong sense of nationalism in their country, making them believe they were superior to other races. This view meant they treated prisoners very harshly, as they believed a soldier should die fighting and never surrender, making them automatically class any prisoner as dishonorable and weak.

(A photo from an unknown camp, not even close to showing the true horrors of what happened at places like this)

They also ignored the laws of the Geneva Convention and any international laws that were set regarding prisoners, leaving them to do whatever they wanted. They would frequently execute people for no reason, and rations consisted of a small bowl of low-quality rice each day, leading to many deaths from starvation. The prisoners would be put to work in lumber camps, mines, shipyards, and any other location that needed manual labor. From the accounts of many of the survivors, they worked an average of 12 hours per day and had 500 to 600 calories of food each day, which consisted mostly of rice, seaweed, and soybeans.