Following the aftermath of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans and Japanese people were sent to War Relocation Camps. These camps, surrounded by barbed wire, armed guard towers, with guns facing inwards, felt demeaning to every one of the 100,000 plus located within. Additional orders were given to the guards to shoot anyone who tried to escape. Life in these camps was at best inhospitable. Sheets on clotheslines were used to divide families that slept on cots that were surrounded by the smell of horse urine and dung.
An example of some of the things that George Henderson says in his paper about poverty is, “Poverty is staying up all night on' cold nights to watch the fire knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means you’re sleeping child dies in flames. In summer poverty is watching gnats and flies devour your baby's tears when he cries.” In the novel Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario poverty is everywhere, some places are just worse than others like families living in shacks, only being able to eat one meal a day. These authors and others are pointing out an indisputable fact. Poverty is everywhere and everyone needs to be doing something about it. Sonia Nazario describes a very graphic picture of children without one or any parents, food, shelter, and clothing, which many Americans choose to ignore and go about their business like it doesn’t happen here and around the world.
Caught in the act, the two men were beaten by Nazi guards and then assigned to Auschwitz's Sonderkommando, a group of inmates forced to work at corpse disposal through burial or, much more commonly, cremation. From May, 1942, until the evacuation of Auschwitz Muller worked as a Sonderkommando. An eyewitness to the operations at Auschwitz, Muller witnessed the mass executions of perhaps as many as a quarter of a million people and was present in the camp for the mass executions of over one million people. In January, 1945, Muller and others were
The Rape of Nanking. No word exists, not even rape, that is a proper justification for the atrocities that occurred during the occupation of China’s capital by Japanese forces during World War II. Over the 6 concentrated weeks of killing in Nanking, the noncombatant death toll has been placed at times higher than 350,000 by some with an estimated 20,000-80,000 women raped. On the soldiers’ way to Nanking, no town in their way was spared a similar fate. The horrible murders had innumerable variations in the form and scope of the killing.
Marching their prisoners toward camps in northern Luzon, the Japanese denied food and water to the sick and starving men. When the weakest prisoners began to straggle, guards shot or bayoneted them and threw the bodies to the side of the road. Japanese guards may have killed 600 Americans and 10,000 Filipino prisoners. News of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had outraged the American people; news of the "Bataan Death March" filled them with bitter hatred. By May 1942 the Japanese had succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
Each prisoner was given a small piece of bread and a cup of coffee at the beginning of each day, and another cup of coffee at night. The smart ones learned to save some bread for night. It was hardly enough nutrition at all, and many died from malnutrition or starvation. They were not given adequate clothing for the climate, the living quarters were overcrowded and disease ridden, and many times they did not have the proper tools for their assigned duties. All of these things led to a high mortality rate.
Hiding behind the (legally invalid) pretext that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention, the Germans treated Soviet prisoners with appalling brutality and neglect. Many died as slave labourers or ended up in death camps. Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners taken by the Axis powers, 3.3 million died in captivity. This figure, when compared with the 8,348 Western Allied prisoners who died in German POW camps (of a total of 232,000) starkly demonstrates the radically different treatment given to both
They are sent a prison war camp while enduring the vicious train ride. There were no bathrooms in the ride so they have to endure the filth, and stench marinating in the train; death also filled the air. They
For example, the first part of the book takes place in the city of Leningrad while it is under siege by the German forces. The horrible conditions are reflected when Lev says “others dwindled while the ration cards were cut and cut again, halving those who looked like circus strongmen before the invasion” (Benioff 8). The cutting of ration cards is described in this quote, because as the war wore on there was not enough food to feed everyone. As I already stated, the authorities in Leningrad did not think there was not enough food to last more then a few months, but by this point in the book it was already a while afterwords. The shortage of food was also shown with the very quest that this entire book was based of off.
Stand at attention in rain and snow forbidden to talk or move, some prisoners have been known to drop dead right there from sickness, fatigue or malnourishment. The days in camp are filled with exhausting work, little food and water and a chance of being beaten or killed for just about any reason. When waking up at 4 a.m. in the morning, the first thing the prisoners would have to face is seeing all the people that didn’t make it through the night and then pray that someone didn’t steal their shoes. If someone took their shoes and they couldn’t find any that would fit they would be severely beaten or killed because they would not be able to work. Once they find their shoes, they would