Some topics almost hurt to even think about. This is one of those topics. The abject, heartless, evil, and inhumane (and inhuman) treatment that occurred there is almost beyond our comprehension as a species. And that’s a major reason we need to be reminded of these supreme examples of human inhumanity.

Let’s start with some facts. The system that created the camps was overly racist. There was nothing hidden or deceptive about that. While some others were swept up in the net of the camps, they were created to imprison specific ethnicities and groups. That can’t be denied (although many in recent years have tried to do so). And, while many of the victims who perished in the camps were murdered outright, we tend to forget that there were oh so many others who died of disease and malnutrition.

You see, the camps were poorly built and the supply chains that were supposed to give them even the bare needs of food and even water were often disrupted due to other miliary and national priorities and then by the war itself. The men who ran the camps had little interest in insuring that the camp internees were seen to or provided for. Thus, basic sanitation was non-existent. People were crowded into spaces designed for several times fewer than the number who eventually were placed there. As supplies dwindled nationally as the war continued, the government’s position was that the military and then their “own” people should have the priority of receiving proper nutrition. These “other” people who were in the camps? Well, not much thought was given to them regarding any relief at all.

Thus, thousands died of having no food or water, and thousands more from typhus, dysentery, and other diseases that could have been easily preventable if proper rationing had been instituted nationwide and if simple, proper sanitation elements were employed. But that was the choice the government made, so please don’t argue that these deaths by starvation and disease were somehow “accidental” or even beyond the government’s ability to help.

Some of the first reports on the dire conditions in the camps that made it back to the shores of Britain were made by a woman named Emily Hobhouse. It seems that she had managed to get a tour of one of the camps because the administrator simply didn’t care who saw what was happening to those placed there. In fact, Hobhouse later reported, he seemed rather proud of the fact that these people were suffering and dying. She was understandably shocked and stunned by what she saw, by the attitude of the camp commandant, and by the guards who stood passively by as people fell dead at their feet.

Hobhouse made a report to members of Parliament during the war. But most members who heard about her story, while outraged to a degree over what she reported, said that there was little they could do. That was a continent away, they argued, and they had no ability to make changes. Besides, compared to the war itself, the conditions of those in the concentration camps were way, way down on the list of British government priorities. So, nothing was done.

Finally, the war ended. The camps were broken up. But the damage had been done. The incredibly high rate of deaths among those imprisoned stunned the outside world. The especially high morality rate among children shocked many the most. How could a civilized nation allow this to happen? Emily Hobhouse’s report was resurrected, and the Parliament debated what to do about those in charge of the camps, but nothing was done to punish or condemn the camp administrators.

And, to this day, we don’t know for sure how many Dutch and African men, women, and children died in the British concentration camps of the Second Boer War from 1899-1902.