Xifeng Concentration Camp

Xifeng Concentration Camp

The site of the Xifeng Concentration Camp is located in Xifeng County of Guizhou Province. The camp was built on the eve of the Lugouqiao Incident (July 7th Incident) in 1937, on a small scale in the beginning. With the Japanese invasion, the Xifeng Concentration Camp soon became the largest prison in the Kuomintang ruling area. Since there were too many communists captured from Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping, Wuhan and Sichuan to fit into the small concentration camp, Dai Li, the commander of the KMT spy agency, ordered to move it to Yanglangba -- about six kilometers south of Xifeng County. Dai Li appointed his henchman as head officer and transferred a large number of secret agents to form a series of giant organizations to supervise, inquest, torture and watch over the prisoners.   

The site of the Xifeng Concentration Camp comprises two locations: at the Yanglangba Cave, six kilometers south of Xifeng County, and at the Xuantian Cave in Nanwang Mountain, 8.5 kilometers east of the county. The Yanglangba Cave is a natural water-eroded cave with a mouth 4.3 meters high and 15 meters wide. Inquest rooms occupy over 40 square meters in the cave. About 27 meters is occupied by an underground river that was once used as a water dungeon. There are altogether 34 cells in eight buildings built 30 meters to the right of the cave. The concentration camp was originally surrounded by a wall two meters high and 1,100 meters long with 4 blockhouses located outside the wall. But these constructions no longer exist. The Xuantian Cave is divided into an old and new cave. The old cave is about 30 meters high, 54 meters wide and 137 meters deep, and spreads across some 3,500 square meters. About 300 meters south is the new cave -- a small and deep structure with underground rivers. The present cave is surrounded by walls with watchtowers built on the southern and northern ends. Between the autumn of 1938 and 1946, General Yang Hucheng, the renowned patriot general who participated in the planning of the Xi’an Incident, was imprisoned there with his wife and youngest son.

The Xifeng Concentration Camp, which operated for nine years, held over 3,200 prisoners; among them over 600 were killed or tortured to death. Victims included communists, high-ranking military officers who resisted Japanese invaders, and patriots.