World War II Poetry
World War II was a gruesome time. Many people were captured and kept as prisoners of war just because they were soldiers on the enemy's side. The saddest part though is that innocent families, from children to elders, were kept in camps because of their race. The country feared they were still in conspiracy with their homeland which was the enemy. In extreme cases, like the Holocaust, the Germans were kept the Jews hostage and killed by the thousands all because they felt their race was inferior. (United) Each of these groups of people wrote heartwarming poems about their experiences, from the hate they faced to the conditions they lived in.
The Japanese interim camps during World War II trapped all the Japanese living in America during the time of the Pearl Harbor and World War II in fear that they were still trying to collaborate back home to Japan. During the time in these interment camps the Japanese wrote many poems. The adults, along with the children wrote poems about what they were experiencing and how they were feeling. (Japanese-American)
The children in the interment camps didn't understand what was going on in the world around them. They thought of themselves as a part of America just like the non-Japanese American citizens around them. They thought of these camps as just a new adventure. But it's far from that. As they grew up they began to understand where they were and why they were there. All of the Japanese-Americans received fierce hatred, from verbally get called insulting names to get their homes and cars trashed or burnt down. (Wakatsuki)
A Japanese adult at a Japanese interment camp wrote a poem called Barracks home. The author writes about the conditions of housi...
... middle of paper ...
...ll to Manzanar. 2nd ed. . New York, Toronto,
London, Sydney, Auckland: Bantam Books, 1973. Print.
Friedler, Sorelle. "World War II Poetry ." poetry written in the Japanese internment camps in the
U.S and in the ghettos and concentration camps in Europe. N.p.. Web. 8 Mar 2014.
.
"Holocaust poetry and art." . Web Mania. Web. 8 Mar 2014.
.
Trueman, Chris. "Prisoners of war ." History learning site . N.p.. Web. 8 Mar 2014.
.
Smith , Mary, and Barbara Freer. "World War II - Prisoners of War - Stalag Luft I ." The poetry .
N.p.. Web. 8 Mar 2014. .
Knowles, John. A separate peace. Macmillen, 1975. Print.
As Inada points out with his analogy to a constellation, the United States government had constructed many camps and scattered them all over the country. In other words, the internment of Japanese-Americans was not merely a blip in American history; it was instead a catastrophic and appalling forced remov...
I wish I could say that I would have been against the internment camps, but had I lived during that time frame, I probably would have agreed with society’s fear of Japanese-Americans. Currently working in an assisted living facility, I spoke with many of my residents about this subject. Although they are somewhat ashamed of their actions made by the government, they reminded me that they all had anxiety and concern about immanent invasion of the Imperial Japanese Army attacking the west coast of the United States.
Myer, Dillon S. Uprooted Americans: The Japanese Americans and the War Relocation Authority During World War II. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970. Print
What were the Japanese internment camps some might ask. The camps were caused by the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1942 by Japan. President Roosevelt signed a form to send all the Japanese into internment camps.(1) All the Japanese living along the coast were moved to other states like California, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona. The camps were located away from Japan and isolated so if a spy tried to communicate, word wouldn't get out. The camps were unfair to the Japanese but the US were trying to be cautious. Many even more than 66% or 2/3 of the Japanese-Americans sent to the internment camps in April of 1942 were born in the United States and many had never been to Japan. Their only crime was that they had Japanese ancestors and they were suspected of being spies to their homeland of Japan. Japanese-American World War I veterans that served for the United States were also sent to the internment camps.(2)
Holocaust concentration camps were located around Central or Eastern Europe (around Germany and Poland). Many of these camps were death camps that were created solely to murder in...
Marsh, James H. "Japanese Internment: Banished and Beyond Tears." The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 23 Feb. 2012. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. .
World War I and II brought the worst of times for some people; loved ones were lost, families were separated, homes were destroyed, and innocent lives were taken during this time. There are many ways to deal with these hardships; Jewish poet, Avrom Sutzkever, used his hard times as inspiration for his writing and as a way to deal with the war and survive it (INSERT CITATION). This part of history also resulted in other great works of art as a way to deal with what the war brought, during and after the war was over. Avrom Sutzkever wrote his poem “Frozen Jews,” using such dark and depressing imagery, connotation, and diction because of his historical and biographical background.
Bruce Elleman, Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941-1945 (New York City: Routledge, 2006), 55.
In conclusion, japanese-americans shouldn't have been considered a threat to other citizens. Their services in the american army were proof of their loyalty. The internment camps were a bad idea. They were an act of pure racism and it should not be repeated
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
There are a number of reasons why the internment of the Japanese people had to take place. Japan was a major threat to the United States which made anyone of Japanese descendent a potential traitor and threat to America’s security. No one was quite sure what they were capable of.
The whole issue involved with the unfair treatment of Japanese Americans in the internment camps by the Americans, started not so long after Japanese warplanes bombed the Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt, the chief of staff at that time signed an Executive Order 9066 which entailed the detainment of anyone who had any descendant from Japan. Contradictory to all evidences presented by the intelligence agencies, first generation Japanese Americans were the easy prey used by the government to show they had total control of the situation. Using several primary documents and secondary sources, the forced imprisonment and harsh mistreatment of Japanese Americans in internment camps would be examined. Since there was a huge influx of Japanese Americans in the West Coast, there was anger and fear that they might take over the U.S [Yellow Peril]. The imminence of the World War II solidified the motive to be afraid of the Japanese Americans and created cause for the U.S government to lead them to internment. Surprisingly even though Americans boasted about democracy, most of the Nikkei placed in internment were American citizens by law and had no right to be incarcerated. After 30 years, President Ford, the current chief of staff reversed Executive Order 9066. He stated that it was wrong to detain Nikkei as they were loyal to America. A public apology and a payment of $20,000 were made out to Nikkei. This gesture solidifies the wrongdoing of Nikkei by the U.s government. The same conclusion could be drawn from a close look inside of the internment camps. From my research on the issue at hand, I propose a thesis stating that the incarceration of the Japan...
Hutchinson, Daniel. We . . . Are the Most Fortunate of Prisoners": The Axis POW Experience at Camp Opelika during World War II. Publication. Alabama Review, 2011. Print.
Robson, David. "Life in Camps." The Internment of Japanese Americans. San Diego, CA: Reference Point, 2014. N. pag. Print.
Japanese Internment Camps were established to keep an eye on everyone of Japanese decent. The internment camps were based on an order from the President to relocate people with Japanese Heritage. This meant relocating 110,000 Japanese people. “Two thirds of these people were born in America and were legal citizens, and of the 10 people found to be spying for the Japanese during World War II, not one was of Japanese ancestry” (Friedler 1). Thus, there was no reason for these internment camps, but people do irrational things when driven by fear. In theinternment camps, many of the Japanese became sick or even died because of lack of nourishment in the food provided at these camps. The conditions in the internment camps were awful. One of the internment camps, Manzanar, was located to the west of Desert Valley in California. “Manzanar barracks measured 120 x 20 feet and were divided into six one-room apartments, ranging in size from 320 to 480 square feet.