Antagonism among the prisoners of war

Prisoners of different backgrounds were interned at the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp, reflecting the racial composition of Austria-Hungary. The allocation of barracks also reflected this.

“The Austrian prisoners were made up of about nine racial groups. This is why there were barracks for Hungarians and Croatians. I once said to soothe two Hungarians who were arguing, ‘You are all Hungarians. Just get along. The two Hungarians retorted, ‘You cannot say that we are all Hungarians. Six races are mixed in our Hungarian house.’ This is also the case with the Croatian house. The left half of the barracks was for 60 Croatian prisoners and the right half was for 35 German-Austrian prisoners and 25 German prisoners.”
(From Kersten’s Diary)

A record of the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp (The Ouukedai Diary in the possession of the National Institute for Defense Studies) describes the racial friction as follows:

The 13 prisoners shown on the right are from Istria, Trieste and Dalmatia and are of Italian origin. They are deeply aware of their Italian descent and tend to celebrate Italy deep down. From the beginning of their internment, they are always ignored by Austrian prisoners and are isolated. This situation continued. Since Italy declared war and participated in the war on the side of the Allied Powers in early summer of last year, the antipathy from German and Austrian prisoners has become increasingly strong. Every time other prisoners see German and Austrian prisoners, they insult them, saying “You are unpatriotic persons who are sympathetic to Italy.” In June of last year, they finally oppressed those minority groups for this reason and assaulted them violently. Since then, the minority groups have been subject to such persecutions both overtly and covertly and have often asked us for protection.
(“A report of prisoners in need of segregation,” The Ouukedai Diary, 1916)

Italy was neutral at the opening of hostilities, but the country declared war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915. In this situation, prisoners of Italian origin were also “enemy aliens” and asked for protection, fearing the people around them. In fact, some prisoners of Italian origin submitted drawings of destructive dynamite bombs and airplane bombs to cooperate with the entente side that Italy was part of and filed a request to use the bombs in the battlefield.

“Originally, Bruno Pinski, third-class seaman of the Austrian Navy, who was of Italian origin, hoped to join the war on the side of the Italian military. As his internment prevented this, he submitted drawings for dynamite bombs and airplane bombs of his own design in the hopes that they would be of some service to the Allied Powers if they were found to be effective as a result of the Japanese government’s examination. I will send his drawings on the attached sheet as they would be of some help in tactics.”
(“A notification about sending a drawing of dynamite bombs drawn up by a prisoner,” The Ouukedai Diary, 1916)

Image: The submitted drawing of dynamite bombs (courtesy of the National Institute for Defense Studies)

In addition, the racial antagonism developed into a real conflict.

“About 250 German prisoners and 220 Austrian prisoners are interned at the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp under the jurisdiction of the Kato District. At around 9:30 pm on the 10th day of this month, there was a clash between German and Austrian prisoners at the camp and the German prisoners fought against 25 Austrian prisoners, including Bachiriuekusurau, who injured his right hand. The cause of the fight is being investigated in detail now. A riot broke out in Austria as well some time ago. What puts the Central European alliance at a disadvantage is attributable to a group belonging to the rebel Koroatsuben.”
(“A report of a conflict among prisoners,” The Ouukedai Diary, 1918)

The cause of this clash among prisoners that broke out in July 1918, at the end of World War I, was as follows. German prisoners thought that the German-Austrian side would be put at a disadvantage because there was a riot going on in Austria-Hungary. They clashed with Slavic prisoners (“Koroatsuben” was apparently Croatian) who seemed to be connected to the riot. The Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp was far from the battlefield, but the prisoners interned at the camp were also influenced by the development of the war (Italy’s participation in the war and the riot in Austria-Hungary).