Download or read book Concentration Camps on the Home Front written by John Howard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration camps were set up across the country to confine over 120,000 inmates. Almost 20,000 of them were shipped to the only two camps in the segregated South—Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas—locations that put them right in the heart of a much older, long-festering system of racist oppression. The first history of these Arkansas camps, Concentration Camps on the Home Front is an eye-opening account of the inmates’ experiences and a searing examination of American imperialism and racist hysteria. While the basic facts of Japanese-American incarceration are well known, John Howard’s extensive research gives voice to those whose stories have been forgotten or ignored. He highlights the roles of women, first-generation immigrants, and those who forcefully resisted their incarceration by speaking out against dangerous working conditions and white racism. In addition to this overlooked history of dissent, Howard also exposes the government’s aggressive campaign to Americanize the inmates and even convert them to Christianity. After the war ended, this movement culminated in the dispersal of the prisoners across the nation in a calculated effort to break up ethnic enclaves. Howard’s re-creation of life in the camps is powerful, provocative, and disturbing. Concentration Camps on the Home Front rewrites a notorious chapter in American history—a shameful story that nonetheless speaks to the strength of human resilience in the face of even the most grievous injustices.
Download or read book Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania written by Flavio G. Conti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-10-19 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October 1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair, and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall, bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however, oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the positive legacy of this encounter.
Download or read book Axis Prisoners of War in Tennessee written by Antonio S. Thompson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2023-03-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, Axis prisoners of war received arguably better treatment in the U.S. than anywhere else. Bound by the Geneva Convention but also hoping for reciprocal treatment of American POWs, the U.S. sought to humanely house and employ 425,000 Axis prisoners, many in rural communities in the South. This is the first book-length examination of Tennessee's role in the POW program, and how the influx of prisoners affected communities. Towns like Tullahoma transformed into military metropolises. Memphis received millions in defense spending. Paris had a secret barrage balloon base. The wooded Crossville camp housed German and Italian officers. Prisoners worked tobacco, lumber and cotton across the state. Some threatened escape or worse. When the program ended, more than 25,000 POWs lived and worked in Tennessee.
Download or read book The German Pows in South Carolina written by Deann Bice Segal and published by Em Texts. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many rural communities in South Carolina share a place in World War II history that has largely been forgotten. From 1943 to 1946, towns such as Aiken, Florence, Camden, Spartanburg, and York were enthusiastic hosts for a special group of laborers: German prisoners of war. These prisoners from the North African, Sicilian, and European campaigns filled needed jobs, mostly in agriculture, all across the nation. In South Carolina, prison camps were established in rural areas where labor was needed in agriculture, the lumber industry, and a few manufacturing jobs. Prisoner labor was also used on military bases to free civilian and army personnel for front-line duty. By the end of W.W.II, over 425,000 German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners were interned in prisoner of war camps in the United States. In South Carolina, the War Department established more than twenty camps in seventeen counties housing 8,000 to 11,000 German prisoners. These prisoners provided much needed labor in agricultural communities and were often the only direct connection with the "enemy" experienced on the home front. This book explores the general policies of the United States toward captured prisoners of war and to analyze their implementation in South Carolina from the perspectives of the American officials, the German prisoners, and the communities that housed the camps. This book examines the history of prisoners of war in South Carolina, focusing on life behind the wire, the labor performed by POWs, and the impact of this labor in South Carolina, the adherence to the Geneva Convention, attitudes that influenced policies for the treatment of prisoners, local reaction to the POWs and their labor, as well as the prisoners' impressions of the conditions in which they were held.
Download or read book Prisoners of the Home Front written by Martin F. Auger and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the middle of the most destructive conflict in human history, the Second World War, almost 40,000 Germans civilians and prisoners of war were detained in internment and work camps across Canada. Prisoners of the Home Front details the organization and day-to-day affairs of these internment camps and reveals the experience of their inmates. Auger concludes that Canada abided by the Geneva Convention; its treatment of German prisoners was humane. This book sheds light on life behind barbed wire, filling an important void in our knowledge of the Canadian home front during the Second World War.
Download or read book World War II on the Home Front written by City of Greeley Historic Preservation Office and published by . This book was released on 2010* with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Men in German Uniform written by Antonio Thompson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the largest prisoner-of-war handling operation in U.S. history, this book offers a meticulous account of the myriad history, this book offers a meticulous account of the myriad problems—as well as the impressive successes—that came with problems—as well as the impressive successes—that came with housing 371,000 German POWs on American soil during World War II. Antonio Thompson draws on extensive archival research to probe the various ways in which the U.S. government strove to comply with the Geneva Convention’s mandate that enemy prisoners be moved from the war zone and given food, shelter, and clothing equal to that provided for American soldiers. While the prisoners became a ready source of manpower for the labor- starved American home front and received small wages in return, their stay in the United States generated more than a few difficulties, which included not only daunting logistics but also violence within the camps. Such violence was often blamed on Nazi influence and control; however, as Thompson points out, only a few of the prisoners were actually Nazis. Because the Germans had cobbled together military forces that included convicts, their own POWs, volunteers from neutral nations, and conscripts from occupied countries, the bonds that held these soldiers together amid the pressures of combat dissolved once they were placed behind barbed wire. When these “men in German uniform,” who were not always Germans, donned POW garb, their former social, racial, religious, and ethnic tensions quickly reemerged. To counter such troubles, American authorities organized various activities—including sports, arts, education, and religion—within the POW camps; some prisoners even participated in an illegal denazification program created by the U.S. government. Despite the problems, Thompson argues, the POW-housing program proved largely successful, as Americans maintained their reputation for fairness and humane treatment during a time of widespread turmoil.
Download or read book Voices of Camp Forrest in World War II written by Dr. Elizabeth Taylor and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Camp Forrest was a World War II induction, training and prisoner of war facility in Tullahoma. The self-sustained city was home to seventy thousand soldiers and about twelve thousand civilian employees. In 1943, the base accepted and housed German and Italian POWs. After the war ended, the base was decommissioned and dismantled. The legacy of the facility at home and abroad is still evident today. The memories of those who lived, worked, trained and grew up during this time of sacrifice and war recount a time the world has not seen since. Author Elizabeth Taylor uses numerous personal interviews, newspaper articles, diaries and biographies to tell the stories of those who lived through the era.
Download or read book The Stigma of Surrender written by Brian K. Feltman and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approximately 9 million soldiers fell into enemy hands from 1914 to 1918, but historians have only recently begun to recognize the prisoner of war's significance to the history of the Great War. Examining the experiences of the approximately 130,000 German prisoners held in the United Kingdom during World War I, historian Brian K. Feltman brings wartime captivity back into focus. Many German men of the Great War defined themselves and their manhood through their defense of the homeland. They often looked down on captured soldiers as potential deserters or cowards--and when they themselves fell into enemy hands, they were forced to cope with the stigma of surrender. This book examines the legacies of surrender and shows that the desire to repair their image as honorable men led many former prisoners toward an alliance with Hitler and Nazism after 1933. By drawing attention to the shame of captivity, this book does more than merely deepen our understanding of German soldiers' time in British hands. It illustrates the ways that popular notions of manhood affected soldiers' experience of captivity, and it sheds new light on perceptions of what it means to be a man at war.
Download or read book Prisoners of the Home Front written by Martin F. Auger and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War (1939--1945), five internment camps were created on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river for the incarceration of male individuals of German descent. They were known as Farnham, Grande Ligne, Ile-aux-Noix, Sherbrooke (Newington) and Sorel. Their goal was to neutralize any potential threat to the defence of the Canadian nation. With the entire country being mobilized for war, the security of the homefront was necessary. Any person suspected of sympathizing with the enemy was perceived as a potential "spy and Saboteur" and was incarcerated in internment camps. Individuals of German origin were no exception. During the first phase of southern Quebec's internment operation, 1940--1943, civilians formed the bulk of the inmates while during the second phase, 1942--1946, it was prisoners of war. This thesis analyzes how the region's internment operation developed. It deals primarily with the issue of life behind the barbed wires and how psychological strains came to affect inmates. It also looks at how Canadian authorities attempted to counter such problems by introducing labour projects and re-educational programs. This case study of southern Quebec demonstrates that the internment camp operation in Canada was an integral part of the effort to produce total war.
Download or read book Prisoners of War written by Fiona Reynoldson and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal narratives show how different countries treated their prisoners of war and shows what happened to them at the end of the war.
Download or read book Union Heartland written by Ginette Aley and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War has historically been viewed somewhat simplistically as a battle between the North and the South. Southern historians have broadened this viewpoint by revealing the “many Souths” that made up the Confederacy, but the “North” has remained largely undifferentiated as a geopolitical term. In this welcome collection, seven Civil War scholars offer a unique regional perspective on the Civil War by examining how a specific group of Northerners—Midwesterners, known as Westerners and Middle Westerners during the 1860s—experienced the war on the home front. Much of the intensifying political and ideological turmoil of the 1850s played out in the Midwest and instilled in its people a powerful sense of connection to this important drama. The 1850 federal Fugitive Slave Law and highly visible efforts to recapture former bondsmen and women who had escaped; underground railroad “stations” and supporters throughout the region; publication of Ohioan Harriet Beecher Stowe’s widely-influential and best-selling Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854; the murderous abolitionist John Brown, who gained notoriety and hero status attacking proslavery advocates in Kansas; the emergence of the Republican Party and Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln—all placed the Midwest at the center of the rising sectional tensions. From the exploitation of Confederate prisoners in Ohio to wartime college enrollment in Michigan, these essays reveal how Midwestern men, women, families, and communities became engaged in myriad war-related activities and support. Agriculture figures prominently in the collection, with several scholars examining the agricultural power of the region and the impact of the war on farming, farm families, and farm women. Contributors also consider student debates and reactions to questions of patriotism, the effect of the war on military families’ relationships, issues of women’s loyalty and deference to male authority, as well as the treatment of political dissent and dissenters. Bringing together an assortment of home front topics from a variety of fresh perspectives, this collection offers a view of the Civil War that is unabashedly Midwestern.
Download or read book Kriegie written by Oscar Richard and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oscar G. Richard -- a native of Sunshine, Louisiana -- was not the usual World War II serviceman. After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and training diligently for many months, the B-17 bombardier spent only one week in combat. On his third and last mission -- on January 14, 1944 -- his plane was shot down over France and he was imprisoned by the Germans. Thus, like many in the Eighth Air Force in late 1943 and early 1944, he spent most of his war not in combat, but in captivity. In this riveting memoir, Richard vividly describes his wartime experiences both before and after his capture, poignantly recounting the transformation of a fresh-faced recruit into a seasoned POW. Offering insight into the early experiences of World War II soldiers, Richard chronicles his enlistment, the months he spent waiting on the home front for induction, and his training at various sites in the American West. He gives compelling accounts of his bombing missions and vividly relives his parachute escape from his doomed plane and his subsequent seizure. Richard relates the path that most POWs in Germany, or kriegies, took after capture: from the front lines to solitary confinement and interrogation at Dulag Luft, through a long and uncertain journey through Germany, to the final destination -- for Richard, Stalag Luft I, near Barth on the Baltic coast. Richard gives a superb description of camp life, detailing the monotonous daily roll calls, the bribing of guards, the endless efforts to undermine camp rules, the inter-barracks soft-ball games, and the attempts to escape. As Richard shows, despite the prisoners' primitive existence behind barbed wire, they formed an infrastructure that wasquite complex. The captives created their own community, complete with families (of bunk mates), sports teams, orchestras, a theater group, and an underground newspaper -- the "POW WOW" -- which kept the prisoners better informed than their captors. Cigarettes were the medium of exchange, with set prices for everything from chocolate to wrist-watches. Although his internment was relatively benign compared to that of Eastern Europeans and Russians, Richard's stay in Stalag Luft I was not without hardship. Guards had orders to shoot prisoners venturing too close to "no man's land", Jewish POWs were sent to segregated barracks uncertain of their futures, famine swept the camp in early 1945 when the Germans cut off Red Cross packages. Even the end of the war and the camp's liberation renewed anxiety among the prisoners as a breakdown in German authority left them unsure of their fate. Throughout his story, Richard honors the friends who made his confinement bearable and never forgets that he was one of the lucky ones. He did not have the chance to distinguish himself in battle, yet, as this touching memoir illustrates, Oscar Richard -- like all kriegies -- is a hero nonetheless.
Download or read book On the Home Front written by Ann Stalcup and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002-12-01 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mesmerizing account of a young English child's life changed forever by World War II.
Download or read book Prisoners of the Home Front a Social Study of the German Internment Camps of Southern Quebec 1940 1946 written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book World War II Long Island The Homefront in Nassau and Suffolk written by Christopher C. Verga and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long Island was transformed from a pastoral rural community to a modern suburban behemoth by playing an integral role in the homefront of World War II. Dozens of Nazi spies infiltrated industry throughout the island and communicated industrial secrets back to Germany as the FBI chased them down. Long Island held the record for producing the most fighter planes in the country with the rapid rebirth of its aviation sector. Five Medal of Honor recipients called the region home. At the close of the war, the United Nations established itself in a weapons factory in Lake Success. Author Christopher Verga charts the rise of Long Island and its role in World War II.
Download or read book German Prisoners of War in South Carolina During the Second World War written by Mary Martha Inkrot and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research paper written for the S.C. State Museum, in preparation for an exhbit on home front efforts during World War II.
