Bethulie Concentration Camp

Bethulie camp was formed on 22 April 1901, after the civilian administration took over the running of the camps from the military, and was created to take the overflow from Springfontein camp. At first families were housed in the little town (which had a population of hardly more that 550). Initially the camp was located on the koppies above the town, but it was moved twice. In June 1901 it was placed nearer to the river. Unfortunately the lower site meant that the camp often lay in heavy mist, the Ladies Committee observed. As disease increased and the ground became polluted, in March 1902 the camp was moved again, to a site where the ground was less fouled.1

The camp was unfenced and, for a long time, unguarded and the inmates were free to come and go as they wished. But, as conditions worsened, some women took advantage of the situation to ‘abscond’. As a result, by September 1901 access to the town was controlled with permits and the boundaries of the camp were guarded by camp police, drawn from the inmates.2 Desertions, however, continued to be a problem for many months and were one reason, later on, for sending some of the ‘worst characters’ to Uitenhage camp in the Cape Colony.3

We know very little about the black inmates of the camp. Certainly they were there. A.G.H. Daller, the first travelling inspector in the ORC, observed the presence of black children: ‘A peculiar feature is the presence of the families of “adopted” or “apprenticed” little coloured children – virtually slaves’, he noted. Their lives must have been hard for they received no rations, depending on their employers for food. As the black townspeople were virtually destitute, blacks in the camp could get little help from that quarter either.4

Bethulie was the archetypal ‘bad’ camp, about which there is a considerable literature. In this entry we try to explore the reasons for its high mortality and to explain its poor reputation.

Many of the early Bethulie inmates were demoralised before they arrived. They had been sent to Springfontein, to find there was no room for them. Sometimes they had to wait for many hours, even days, on Springfontein station before some overcrowded accommodation was at last found for them. The child depicted on the Vrouemonument in Bloemfontein, dying in her mother’s arms, and taken from an account of Emily Hobhouse of a family marooned on Springfontein station, would have been such an example. Yet Mrs Carstens, who arrived in Bethulie in April 1901, commented with relief, ‘The Commandant of the camp, Mr. Deare, was a kind, considerate man, which was a great consolation to us in our trouble.5

One of the ministers serving the camp community, ds A.D. Lückhoff, commented on the air of depression which pervaded the camp. At one time he wrote:

‘Another great point; must insist that friends and relatives abstain from all long-faced despondency, with total absence of any cheer and hopefulness; this bad effect on patients; if anyone seriously ill, they “hands up” and cluster around to await the end, lest perchance they miss seeing “zoo ‘n prachtige sterfbed” (such a beautiful deathbed).’

And later on:’ . . . there is too much despondency and heaviness of spirit rampant.’6

From the start Russell Deare, the first superintendent, struggled with inadequate accommodation – he described it as ‘an impossible task’. When the camp opened, two hundred people had to remain in railway carriages while three hundred were housed in the town. Tents had been sent but the station master could not trace them. Nor could Deare get any supplies. Nothing was available in the village and he had to persuade the local military authorities and various firms to provide food. Deare’s telegrams vividly indicate his desperation: ‘Please enquire where fault lies in sending me at a days notice close on 1000 refugees without any rations or tent accommodation’, he telegraphed; he still wanted another fifty tents sent ‘without delay’ as the resident magistrate would not keep the refugees in town any longer. On 21 May 1901 one hundred refugees arrived ‘and I have no tents for them’; on 9 June: ‘Just heard that 300 refugees will arrive at 7 p.m. I must have 100 tents at once otherwise women and children will have to remain in the open veldt’.7