Escapes

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There were very few escape attempts from Stanley. One reason was that Stanley functioned like a normal community, and many had friends and family in the camp; escaping would likely mean having to leave family behind. Additionally, because the internees were white and spoke little to no Cantonese, they would find it difficult to survive and communicate once they had left the camp. Prisoners had no way of leaving the camp. 

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There was also the fear of severe punishment by the Japanese- execution would likely occur. Despite this, there were three major escape attempts, two of which were successful. All three attempts occurred in the space of two months- Mar to Apr 1942. There were no escape attempts after the Japanese military took control of the camp in 1943, who imposed stricter authority.

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It could even be argued that it was easier to escape from Nazi camps than Stanley camp- undeniably, there was more incentive to. Most escapes were by workers in worksites outside the camp; if one was lucky, they could convince the SS men in charge of work to let them go outside the camp, and from there it would be easier to escape. The fact that there were large-scale revolts in camps like Treblinka and Auschwitz shows how much larger forces were able to be organised- women and children like at Stanley would likely have held a revolt back. Furthermore, conditions in death camps such as Auschwitz drove the prisoners to levels of desperation and insanity which the Stanley prisoners did not experience; there was far less threat of death among the internees. The only forced labour which Hong Kong internees had to participate in was in the POW labour camps in Japan, which many prisoners from Sham Shui Po were sent to. 

 

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