Internment during the Second World War: A Comparative Study of Great Britain and the USA

The internment of ‘enemy aliens’ during the Second World War was arguably the greatest stain on the Allied record of human rights on the home front.Internment during the Second World War compares and contrasts the experiences of foreign nationals unfortunate enough to be born in the ‘wrong’ nation when Great Britain, and later the USA, went to war.While the actions and policy of the governments of the time have been critically examined, Rachel Pistol examines the individual stories behind this traumatic experience.The vast majority of those interned in Britain were refugees who had fled religious or political persecution; in America, the majority of those detained were children.Forcibly removed from family, friends, and property, internees lived behind barbed wire for months and years.Internment initially denied these people the right to fight in the war and caused unnecessary hardships to individuals and families already suffering displacement because of Nazism or inherent societal ra