World War II prisopnmers of war question????

Question

Discuss how long prisoners of war would stay in the internment camps, the physical and mental issues they would face and
how long POW's may have helped each other during their
inprisonment.


It is my homework question and I am stumped on it. Its the only question I dont know.

I have to type half a page.

Answer 1

Generally POW's would stay in a camp until the end of the war, or (very rarely) they were exchanged. Issues they might face would be:
keeping physically fit, not many opportunities for excercise and lack of nourishing food. Prisoners in the Far East mainly subsisted on Rice. Loneliness, being cut off from their loved ones and generally living amongst strangers. Boredom, lots of time on their hands and only limited resources to be shared between hundreds of men. Feelings of shame or inadequacy, natural after being captured. POW's could help each other by befriending one another, talking and listening, sharing interests, planning escapes and sharing Red Cross food parcels.

Answer 2

POW camps in any war are hellish, as you can probably imagine, but WWII is an especially interesting case when you consider Allied troops in Japanese camps, or Russians in German camps. I don't know much about the Japanese camps, admittedly, but Russian POWs died by the hundreds of *thousands* in German camps. It's been estimated anywhere between 1-2 million in the camps ALONE, not counting the Russian soldiers who were just shot outright befor ever reaching a camp. Their food needs ranked lower than anyone else's, including the civilian populations of conquered Russian land (which were themselves deliberately starved to death in large numbers), and often they didn't even have barracks to sleep in, or barracks that were horribly overcrowded.

I know it's just a homework assignment, but if you're interested at all, "War of Annihilation" is an amazing and terrifying new book that looks at treatment of civilians and POWs alike on the eastern front. Definitely worth a read.

Answer 3

There are huge differences between those who were held by the Germans and those who were held by the Japs.
Try Bridge on the River Kwai, The Great Escape, some of those. The Japs were mean and brutal. So were the Germans - but they HAD signed the Geneva Conventions so they at least pretended to treat our guys properly. (And "the Geneva man" would show up occasionally, so they couldn't be consistently cruel.) Russia had NOT signed the Geneva Accords so the Germans took it out on them.
The Japs wouldn't consider signing them (I don't even know if they were asked) as to surrender was SOOOOOOOOOOOO
shameful.
There were some prisoner exchanges in Europe early in the War involving downed airmen - but that soon stopped.

Depending on how much time you have - check out your local VFW Post. They'd LOVE to tell you - and we're losing them at the rate of over 1,000/day. THAT would impress your teacher.

Unfortunately - "No Child Left Behind" left most of our History behind.Thank you, Hillary. My son had TWO pages in his American History textbook devoted to WWII. There were approximately 10 devoted to Viet Nam. Korea had a few paragraphs. My son knew more than his teacher!
The massacre of our G.I.'s at Malmedy is but one example of the German outlook on who was superior and who was not.
The Russians murdered by the Germans, some in POW Camps, led directly to the Russian's treatment of the Germans at War's end. (One reason at least.)
The Japs treatment of Allied men who surrendered was the worst. In my opinion. If you were there - you obviously are better able to speak on the subject than I am.

Answer 4

Two books could be written and, have been on this subject. Half a page?

My brother-in-law was taken prisoner by the Germans in the "battle of the bulge" and escaped being shot, instead of taken alive and, barely escaped with his life. To a Navy flier who spent 17 (seventeen years) in a prisoner of war camp in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

There isn't enough space or time to tell the story here. I was there, I'm just so sorry so many of you have forgotten.

Answer 5

Any P.o.w. question surely must also address the Vietnam War? Regardless of what has been /is/will be said by the U.S. state department it is not inconceivable that there may still be American P.o.w.'s out there today. Highly unlikely I'll grant you, but you never know. I recommend a book called 'The Bamboo Cage', very interesting. Sadly I can't remember author or publisher. Try amazon.

Answer 6

there must be lots of sites with info on various POW camps.
This site has a little information on Belsen,plotzensee,flossenburg.
Also loads of interesting,lesser know facts of the war
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/index.html

Answer 7

You'd best watch some movies.