Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person captured or interned by a belligerent power during war. In the strictest sense, it is applied only to members of regularly organized armed forces, but there are also broader definitions.
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History
For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy combatants on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either killed or enslaved. More recently, certain such prisoners have been given certain rights under international law, with this gradually extending to larger groups and to more extensive rights.
- A combatant who falls into the hands of an adverse party to a conflict in the course of an international armed conflict is a prisoner of war. Individuals who fall into the hands of the enemy during an armed conflict are protected under humanitarian law. If the individual is a combatant, he or she is accorded protection as a prisoner of war. If the individual is a civilian, he or she is protected as such.[1]
Illegal combatants
As recently as World War II, captured partisans, if unlawful combatants, could be and often were legally executed as war criminals. Especially regarding World War II, there are numerous controversies regarding mass deaths/mass killings of legally protected prisoners of war.
See also
- Killed in action
- Noble savage
- Rheinwiesenlager
- Confederate revisionism: POW camps propaganda
- Claimed mass killings of Germans by the WWII Allies
- Claimed mass killings of non-Jews by National Socialist Germany
