Changi Prison was originally constructed in 1936 by the British administration of the Straits Settlements as a civilian prison. Following the fall of Singapore during WWII in February 1942, the Japanese military converted Changi Prison into a holding camp for prisoners of war (POW); the same happened to the British Army’s Selarang Barracks, located near the prison, which held some fifty thousand Allied POWs, predominantly made up of British and Australian soldiers.
