Prisoners Of War: What Is The Prisoner Of War?

Pain is an inevitable factor of war and being apart of the military, which many soldiers try to ignore and get over. However this pain is extremely hard to overcome and eventually comes back to haunt there bodies and minds. Civilians in occupied countries are also devastated and manipulated by the fatality of war. The war offensives in these countries cause further mistrust and insecurity between different countries and cultures. The mistrust and lack of communication between the two different cultures lead to a misunderstanding.

War has been something that has existed since the most primitive eras. People selfishly fight just to get what they want, like political power or economic advantages. Events like World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold War have affected and changed our society in different ways, such as the creation of nuclear weapons, the murder of innocent people, the destruction of cities, etc. Even though war stories usually portray heroism and glory, war is not something to be glorified because it causes enormous human suffering, it creates a violent cycle that never stops and it frequently fails to resolve conflicts. War causes suffering and destruction to all the people who experience it, impacting not only the soldiers who directly fight in the war but

War: a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state. War is not just a fight between two organized groups, it is a living hell where people decide if they are going to live or die. The horrors of war are manifested with great detail and imagery in All Quiet on the Western Front, “The Hollow Men”, and In the Field.

In 1940, the Bergen-Belsen prisoner-of-war camp was set up near Celle, Germany (USHMM). SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Haas was the first officer of the camp. It didn’t become an official concentration camp until December of 1944, when SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Kramer became the commandant (Webb and Lisciotto). Homosexuals, gypsies, Jews, and many other types of people were imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen (USHMM).

Hunter:How would you feel if at the age of 9 you were sent to a Nazi concentration camp? Marion Blumenthal Lazan had this happen to her.

What is war? Is war a place to kill? Or is it a place where something more than just killing happens? War, as defined by the Merriam Webster is “a state or period of usually open and declared fighting between states or nations.” War, can also be viewed with romantic ideals where heroes and legends are born. Even the most intelligent of us hold some rather naïve notions of war. Upon reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, intelligent readers have been divested of any romantic notions regarding war they may have harboured.

After three years and five months of being in the internment camp, the family was finally sent home to their house, but many folks and parents had a new perspective on how they saw them to be. First of all, when arriving to the house none of the neighbors had gone out of their way to go out and greet them personally. They all just stared from their windows or as they passed each other on the street. A huge factor of the people living there saw Japanese-Americans as the enemy because of the war and Pearl Harbor. Therefore, there were times where even going to the store was a hassle because of the quick glances that everyone gave them and the question about whether they were Japanese or Chinese. After a while the kids found ways to lessen to

Do you fight harder or do you give up? The losses also affected the civilians, for their families are in battle. They don’t know if their family member can come home. They terrified of losing their family. They get a message saying your Family has died in war.

War can be defined as “an active struggle between competing entities. It’s truly hard to tell who is right or wrong during a war. Both sides are fighting for what they believe in and what is true to their heart. In the end there is always two things promised – destruction and death. These two objects can explain the result in every facet of war from the physical to emotional.

During World War Two both axis and allied powers had prisoners of war. The axis powers were more brutal and abusive then the allies. Prisoners were put in prisons called concentration camps. Prisoners would be packed into building called barracks and many slept in the same space with thin blankets. There were no mattresses and just wood to sleep on. People slept in bunks that were two to three beds high. Prisoners would get few hours of sleep and beds would crash on top of each other in people's sleep due to them being built fast and cheap. The barrack were cold and were heated only by a small coal

Japanese-American internees and the Prisoner of War were constrained to feel “invisible” to the world. Louie and other Prisoners of War (POW), were held in captivity in Ofuna, POWs were enforced by Japanese to feel invisible, as an example they were not allowed to conversate with each other because they might give information out that Japanese tried to keep,”There were dozens of men in cells near him, but there was no sound. In this warren of captives, Louie was alone” (Hillenbrand, 147),What this is showing is isolation, Louie and the other Prisoners of War (POW) were isolated from each other, if they were to talk to another they’ll get harsh beatings from the Japanese. Mine and her brother, were both isolated from people around them, even

War can be defined as armed conflict between nations or states or even different groups within a nation or state. All these wars, approximately 14,000 in the past 5,000 years, take innocent civilians away from their family, home, what they know for months or even years at a time. Often times the conditions these individuals are living in while at war are far from the normal life they previously lived. Vets often see and have to do certain task that no human being should be required to do. Leaving behind a lot of mental repairing to do once back home. Once a war comes to an end, these civilians are thrown back into a culture they have been away from for months, even years with little to no direction on where to start to build their lives again.

“Captivity in war is a different and confronting experience, regardless of the particular conflict” Dr. Rosalind Hearder

No one goes to war thinking they will be the one captured and tortured by the enemy. As Canadian troops sailed to Europe to join in the fighting of World War Two, they more likely had nightmares about dying tragically, or suffering for days. No one really worried about being captured because war was associated with fighting, guns, winning and losing. A rude awakening came to those captured and taken to the many different concentration camps. Canadian POW's endured very unfortunate experiences in the Second World War. All of which were unnecessary and most of which were against international rules."Canadian prisoners of war are the forgotten men of World War Two" The process in which they suffered plays a significant role in Canadian

Many citizens of the United States immediately after the Civil War knew very little of the atrocities of that occurred in the prisoner of war camps. News that their family member was in a prisoner of war camp was usually dreaded by the family of the captured soldiers. While being dead was much worse the families never truly knew what was going on inside the camps. For the Confederacy, many feared Rock Island, but there was a just as deadly camp just north of Rock Island in Chicago. Once the war had ended the atrocities of what occurred inside the prisoner of war camps became apparent. Suddenly multiple fingers were pointed at what was the culprit for such deplorable conditions. The pictures, descriptions, and accounts of what happened inside the prisoner of war camps became a part of not only history but the media as well. Multiple books were written about the prisoner of war camps, several works of fiction reference the prisoner of war camps. Andersonville is almost unanimously regarded as the worst camp for a Union soldier to get sent to. Rock Island seems to be the place that many agree as the worst camp that a Confederate soldier could get sent to. Rock Island is even mentioned in several works of fiction, including Gone With The Wind. In Gone With The Wind the main character Scarlett O’Hara’s sister in law, Melanie Wilkes received a letter telling her that her husband Ashley Wilkes had been captured and taken to a horrible place called Rock Island. However, while Rock