In the non-fiction book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, a soldier named Louis Zamperini faces hardships as a POW in World War II. Therefore, he had a great deal of obstacles to overcome. He had to persevere through physical abuse, extremely poor living conditions, and war. A POW is a prisoner of war; in other terms, it’s a person captured by enemy forces and mercilessly beaten and tortured every day. Unfortunately, Louis was part of the 93,941 American soldiers who were captured as POWs for Japan, with police officers who “could not, under any circumstances, allow allied forces to recapture POWS. [...] POWS were to be executed.” (204). Louis certainly suffered a great deal for his country. One particularly sadistic officer was Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who did “enjoy hurting POWS. [..] He was satisfying his sexual desire by hurting them.” (242). Plus, Louis was for some reason Watanabe’s favorite as Watanabe indecently assaulted Louis the most out of all the other prisoners. Considering …show more content…
Being treated like slaves, prisoners each occupied tiny cages and “At Ofuna, captives weren’t just beaten, they were starves. [..] The food was infested with rat droppings, maggots, and so much sand and grit that Louie’s teeth were soon pitted, chipped, and cracked.” Under those circumstances, many captives died out and faced multiple illnesses. It’s not like the camp ‘doctors’ cared, seeing as they were only there to look good on paper. All Japanese prison camps were required to fill out forms stating that they had doctors for prisoners. In actuality, the doctors were only there for the guards. Louis once had to “crawl through the filfth of a pig sty, [...] cram handfuls of the animal’s feed into his mouth to save himself from starving to death.” (291). Luckily, Louis still hung on to that last string of life and survived through his two years of sundry prison
I agree with the statement that Louie was as much a captive as he’d been when barbed wire had surrounded him after the war. The following quote was taken from chapter 39 of Unbroken. “It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over” (386). From this quote, we can see that Louie was struggling with vengeance. Although the war was over in 1945, it toke Louie almost five years to say that the war was over for him because of the hatred and thought of revenge Louie undergo after the war. This is one of the reasons why I agree with the author’s choice to include the post-war years and explore this story of obsession for vengeance. Putting Part V into the book not only not take away the theme of survival,
In the book, Unbroken, the POWs became delusional after being poorly treated at the camps. Even twenty-six-year-old Louie Zamperini had wasted his athlete body in one of these camps. Being POWs to the Japanese was not easy. The men were treated as if they were beasts. While in the other book, Manzanar, Japanese homes were ransacked and families were forced to leave with what they could carry to go to camps. Japanese men were disgraced and had no rights in these camps. Everyone who was in these camps had a significant lost in their weight. At the end of their sufferings, the internees would come out of the ...
Connecticut surgeon, Dr. Albigence Waldo, was one of the surgeons who helped care for sick soldiers at Valley Forge. Throughout his stay, he felt "... Sick - discontented- and out of humor"(Document C). Dr. Waldo journal entry further explains what he had to see and go through every day. The "... fatigue, Nasty Cloaths, nasty Cookery..." made him "vomit half his time"(Document C). Just reading this surgeon experience, I can't imagine myself surviving one day in a hut especially with other people. Keep in mind that in "Each hut slept twelve men"(background). For all I know one of them could have been sick. Now everyone is more vulnerable within the hut because there are no windows which leads to having poor ventilation. Everyone just breathes in the same air. This is why many people were dying; germs were being passed around in the
Being confined in a concentration camp was beyond unpleasant. Mortality encumbered the prisons effortlessly. Every day was a struggle for food, survival, and sanity. Fear of being led into the gas chambers or lined up for shooting was a constant. Hard labor and inadequate amounts of rest and nutrition took a toll on prisoners. They also endured beatings from members of the SS, or they were forced to watch the killings of others. “I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Night Quotes). Small, infrequent, rations of a broth like soup left bodies to perish which in return left no energy for labor. If one wasn’t killed by starvation or exhaustion they were murdered by fellow detainees. It was a survival of the fittest between the Jews. Death seemed to be inevitable, for there were emaciated corpses lying around and the smell...
In Unbroken: A world war 2 story of survival, resilience, and redemption- by Laura Hillenbrand; young Louie Zamperini is a delinquent of Torrance, California. He steals food, runs around like hell and even dreams of hoping on a train and running away for good. However, Pete, his older manages to turn his life around by turning his love of running from the law into a passion for track and field. Zamperini is so fast that he breaks his high school’s mile record, resulting in him attending the olympics in berlin in 1936. His running career however was put on hold when World war 2 broke out, he enlisted in the the Air Corps and becomes a bombardier. During a harrowing battle, the “superman” gets hit numerous times with japanese bullets destroying
Being Unbroken is defined as not being damaged or being fractured. Throughout the two stories; Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand and Night, written by Elie Wiesel, both Louie Zamperini and Elie Wiesel were challenged on many levels, both emotionally and physically. However, their perseverance through their struggles and their optimistic views is what truly got them through the pain and hardships and allowed them to stand tall and not let their faith fail them.
The living conditions in the camp were rough. The prisoners were living in an overcrowded pit where they were starved. Many people in the camp contracted diseases like typhus and scarlet fever. Commonly, the prisoners were beaten or mistreated by
One of the biggest problems was sanitation. Clean water for drinking and bathing was rare and illness from poor hygiene or contaminated water was very common. Most of the camps were in tight groups and contagious diseases such as chickenpox, colds or the flu would spread over camp within
Living conditions in these camps were absolutely horrible. The amount of people being kept in one space, amongst being unsanitary, was harsh on the body.
...ng the night, continuous flashlights were shone on them to keep watch on them. The Japanese-Americans did not receive any privacy and the internment camps hardly every had medical facilities. The camps also had no court hearings, no due process, and no writs of habeas corpus. Living in these internment camps took away almost all of their rights as citizens. (Foner 870)
Unbroken introduces the story of Louie Zamperini who begins a troublemaker but ends a remarkable man. Louie grows up with the duplicating habit of breaking the law, smoking, drinking and robbing
Louie Zamperini had escaped the grievance with his life and has become an advanced soul. Louie Zamperini lived in a miniature house in Torrance, California; he was a fascinating Olympian. He was also held captive as a prisoner of war. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses the life experiences of Louie Zamperini to show the traits of optimistic and rebellious.
Isolated and alone, many attempts from both sides, America and Japan, to force the feeling of invisibility on their POWs or Japanese-American internees. Separated from friends, denied human rights and on the brink of starvation demolishing their dignity. Louie Zamperini was a POW who was originally an Olympian athlete. He was taken captive by Japan while laying raft for over a month. Miné is a Japanese-American intern who had been condemned to an intern camp during World War Two. The experience that Louie and Miné have undergone are those that challenge the two in a very psychological way. However, they have recovered showing their resilience and how humans can recover even from scarring events.
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during World War Two, including Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. Many who were sent to the concentration camps did not survive but those who did tried to either forgot the horrific events that took place or went on to tell their personal experiences to the rest of the world. Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi wrote memoirs on their time spent in the camps of Auschwitz; these memoirs are called ‘Night’ and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. These memoirs contain similarities of what it was like for a Jew to be in a concentration camp but also portray differences in how each endured the daily atrocities of that around them. Similarities between Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi’s memoirs can be seen in the proceedings that
The conditions the prisoners endured were undeserved for any human being however, World War 2 was not fair and with the Nazis at the head of control, anything went (McGreevy Packet).