It's December, 1944, and the Nazis are on the attack.
You're a soldier in the Allied forces pushing forward to liberate France, Belgium, and beyond.
But progress toward Germany has slowed.
You'd been at the front for just days1 when the enemy launched a surprise assault.
Now, you and your brothers-in-arms struggle to hold a key crossroads in Belgium.
Days of fighting become a blur of rifle fire, shelling, and disorientation2.
In your training, and on the transport across the English Channel, and as you neared enemy
lines for the first time, you couldn't keep the thought of dying in battle from your mind.
But here, surrounded by German uniforms—bright white to blend with the snow—the reality
of a different outcome sinks in.
You are now a prisoner of war.
You've heard that other Americans who had surrendered just days ago had been slaughtered
once in captivity.
This time, at least so far, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Once you're past the line of rifles, hands raised, an enemy officer approaches you.
He says something to you in German, which you don't understand, but then he adds, in
English: "For you, the war is over."3
If you’d been part of the first days of World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, it might
have gone something like that.
As it turns out, science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut had an experience of the sort.
His tragicomic novel Slaughterhouse Five tells a fictionalized account of his own experience
as a World War II POW4.
But if one of his Nazi captors ever announced to Vonnegut that his war was over, they were
mistaken, or disingenuous.
After their capture, Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners had a forced march of three days
to a train depot5.
From there, he was sent to work in a factory in the city of Dresden.
That location put the future author in the firing line for the Allied bombing raids which
would eventually level the city.
He managed to survive.
Some 25,0006 people in Dresden did not.
It then became Vonnegut’s duty to gather corpses for burning7.
In World War II, your experience as a POW depended upon where you fought8, and on which
side.
In the context of war, some of the most important laws of civil society don't apply.
But if the prohibition on killing is lifted, couldn’t that invite warring powers to descend
into unrestrained violence?
International laws aim to prevent a slippery slope into indiscriminate torture and slaughter9.
The Geneva Conventions, written at a series of international meetings, include rules to
protect combatant POWs from the worst violations of their rights10, although before 1949, they
were less explicit about the rights of civilian POWs.
As spelled out before the start of World War II11, provisions for POWs included:
A ban on executing those who surrender Adequate food, shelter, and medical care in
a place out of harm's way Freedom from torture or any requirement to
share intelligence beyond the prisoner's own identity
Restrictions on the amount and nature of work prisoners could perform
But two of the major powers involved in World War II hadn't accepted the Geneva Conventions.
The Soviet Union wasn't a signatory at all12, and Japan had signed but never ratified the
treaty13.
By 1942, Japan announced that it would abide by the Conventions, with unspecified modifications14.
The human rights record of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy often didn’t reflect the spirit
or letter of the law.
At Zentsuji, a model camp15 in the vicinity of Hiroshima, conditions were difficult, but
survivable, with privileges including religious worship16.
But in general, prisoners of war from the United States and other Allies17 fared poorly
in Japanese custody18.
Slavery, beatings, starvation, and torture19 were common in Japanese prison camps20.
Some Chinese, Russian, and American prisoners of the Japanese died in macabre and callous
medical experiments21.
To at least some extent, cannibalism22 of Japan’s enemies took place, and not always
out of hunger23.
A particularly brutal atrocity by the Imperial Japanese Army was the shooting of live human
beings in target practice24.
Meanwhile, among the Allies in the Pacific Theater, a take-no-prisoners approach became
common early on.
Allied troops often executed the Japanese combatants they captured25, despite the Geneva
Conventions.
Disturbingly, at least some American and other Allied service members seem to have been taken
trophies from the bodies of the slain26, while others tortured prisoners or murdered their
compatriots27.
Japanese service members were instructed to fight to the death rather than surrender28,
even if their situation became hopeless29.
There was also a belief that Allies wouldn’t accept surrender anyway, which was unfortunately
sometimes true.
If capture became imminent, Japanese soldiers often chose suicide instead30.
This may have further contributed to the Allies' reluctance to take Japanese prisoners, since
suicide by grenade might let them kill their would-be captor, as well31.
But Japanese POWs who survived capture could be cooperative, providing valuable intelligence
to the Allies32.
The U.S. command encouraged this approach33.
Many more POWs from Germany than Japan came to the American camps34.
But in Europe as well, Allied troops, like their German adversaries, were at times guilty
of killing combatants attempting to surrender35.
And at least one interrogation facility in London engaged in systematic torture36.
During World War II, the United States held hundreds of thousands of enemy combatants
in camps of various sorts37.
Texas had the most POW camps, in part because of its distance from the country's most vital
manufacturing centers.38 America's POW camps were a separate affair39 from the internment
camps where Asian Americans40, including many U.S. citizens41, were unjustly incarcerated.
Although the U.S. didn't have a perfect human rights record in the Second World War42, its
facilities for POWs were much better43 than those of either Germany or Japan—or the
USSR, for that matter.
In the U.S., official policy was fair44, and even lenient, treatment45.
At the opposite end for human rights, camps of Nazi Germany remain in memory as symbols
of the worst horrors imaginable.
The concentration camps were already places of slavery, suffering, and death before the
war began, and they only got worse.
In a Nazi POW camp, you would get far less food than you needed to live46.
If your stay was long enough, you might lose half your body weight, taking on the appearance
of a walking skeleton.
There is an overlap between POWs and the Holocaust.
If an SS officer thought you looked Jewish or seemed otherwise somehow unacceptable47,
you might48 be routed to slavery in a concentration camp, which combined industrial goals with
death49 by forced labor and starvation.
These POWs joined the millions of European Jews and other civilians, including Roma,
gays, and the handicapped50, targeted for genocide51.
Despite one’s chances of being marked for death upon arrival, overall fatality for POWs
among the Allies on the Western Front was lower than for other regions and belligerents52.
On the Eastern Front, it was a different story.
If you were a Soviet soldier or a Soviet or Polish53 civilian imprisoned by the Nazis,
death in the camps was a strong possibility.
Hitler's forces took millions of prisoners over the course of their invasion of the Soviet
Union.
Aside from a period of formal non-aggression, which the Nazis failed to honor, Communists
were one of the Third Reich’s stated foes.
This stance provided an excuse to capture almost anyone in the Soviet Union.
And in the Soviet Union, as everywhere they invaded, the Nazis added Jews and others—combatants
and civilians alike, men, women, and children—to their unimaginably long list of murder victims54.
Germany was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, but once again didn't live up to its word.
Since the USSR wasn't party to the Conventions, Germany's stance was that these laws of war
wouldn't apply there55.
That violated the law, but no one could stop the Germans' war crimes for good unless the
Nazis were defeated.As a result, daily life for Soviet POWs in German camps amounted to
torture56.
If the Western Allies’ rations as POWs were meager, the Soviets' could be all but nonexistent57.
The "Russian bread" fed to many prisoners was made with ingredients like flour made
from straw58, and could have no nutritive value.
All told, the Soviet Union suffered more than 8 million59 military and civilian deaths as
prisoners of the Nazis60.
Retaliation is no justification, but German soldiers taken by the Soviets were another
group of POWs with a very high probability of dying in captivity, especially after the
war61.
And some Japanese prisoners of war ended up living out their lives in the Soviet Union
for many years after the war; many others died in Siberian labor camps62.
Many Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, British, and Americans faced grim prospects
in captivity by the Japanese63.
The Philippines, which was then occupied by the United States, came under attack immediately
following Pearl Harbor.
The combined Filipino and American forces held off the onslaught for a time64.But in
the end, they couldn't stop the siege.
It was in that country that the Allied P.O.W.s endured an ordeal that still evokes suffering:
the Bataan Death March.
Those captured, some already injured or sick65, marched for five days in severe heat with
little food or water66.
Prisoners who tried to drink water without permission were executed, as were civilians
who gave aid to the prisoners67.
Thousands of POWs died on the march68.
At their destination, Camp O'Donnell, extreme overcrowding, disease, and filth prevailed69.
Some 50,000 Filipino soldiers entered the camp.
Of those, roughly half died over the next eight months.
Surviving American prisoners from the camp were eventually transferred out of the Philippines,
with some ending up in Japan, others on the Asian mainland70.
Horrific conditions on the transport vessels killed some prisoners71.
Others perished in slave camps after arrival72.
Along with the suffering, some of the war's most heroic moments came in the face of atrocities.
Some prisoners succeeded in escaping73.
Slave laborers would sometimes endeavor to sabotage the material they made for the Axis74.
About 100 U.S. military nurses were stationed in the Philippines when Japanese forces attacked75.
Only about twenty had the chance to evacuate.
Those who remained not only became prisoners themselves, but also provided medical care
for a group of civilian internees in Manila.
All 77 of these women survived their years as POWs.
Are there stories from World War II have been especially meaningful to you or your family?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video called “Insane Torpedo-Armed Fast Attack
Vessel - WW2 Speed Demons!”
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!