Prisoners of War During WWII

1089 Words3 Pages

Wars have essentially been the backbone of history. A war can make or break a country. As the result of war, a country can lose or gain territory and a war directly impacts a countries’ economy. When we learn about wars in schools we usually are taught about when they start, major events/ battles, and when they end. It would take a year or two to cover one war if we were to learn about everything. One thing that is commonly overlooked and we take for granted, is prisoners of war. Most people think of concentration camps and the millions of Jews that suffered when prisoners and war are mentioned in the same sentence. Yes it is terrible what happened during WWII, but what about our troops that were captured and potentially tortured trying to save the Jews? How did they suffer? Being captured as a prisoner of war is just an on the job hazard. In this paper I will explain what POWs went through and how it has changes between countries, and I will only scratch the surface.

Taking prisoners of war have been a battle tactic for ages. Capturing an enemy troop could be done for many reasons. Mainly enemy soldiers are captured to be interrogated for unknown information on the enemy. There were usually common rules and procedures for taking a prisoner of war, weather they were followed or not was really up to the country. Come 1929, there was a document in the works that set rules regarding prisoners of war. More than 40 countries got together to sign and agree on these new set of rules (“Life” 11). The signing of the Geneva Convention was held in Geneva, Switzerland.

This document of ninety-seven articles defined a prisoner of war as a member of a regular military unit, wearing a uniform (thus spies were excluded). The Convention decl...

... middle of paper ...

... Red Cross and learning the facts about the brutality, General Eisenhower stopped sending POWs to the French. (Tarczal)

Works Cited

Bowman, Michael. "World War II Prisoner of War Camps - Encyclopedia of Arkansas." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

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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.

Tarczal, Bela. Hungarian POW in French Captivity. Publication. Trans. Eva B. Bessenyey. Print.

"World War Two - Japanese Prisoner of War Camps." World War Two. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. .

Wukovits, John F. Life as a POW. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2000. Print.

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