World War II Remembered

"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." These were the opening words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech to the United States Congress the day after the Japanese conducted a sneak attack on the Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was this event that threw the United States into World War II. 

The devastation of Pearl Harbor was massive. So many lives were lost. To this day, there are many ships underwater with their contents forever embedded to the ocean floor. There were also bodies that were never recovered. Loved ones were left to wonder if their family and friends were alive or dead. 

The attack happened early on a Sunday morning. At that time, most were in church or had yet to start their day. Soldiers had only begun to file into their ships. Had this attack happened later in the day, more lives would have been lost. 

People tend to overlook the fact that this war had started years previously in Europe. Hitler was on the march seeking to obliterate all Jews. Germany was left vulnerable and broke at the end of the First World War. This left them with a shattered economy and devastated towns and cities. Work was hard to find and food was in short supply. Hitler's promise of prosperity grabbed the nation, giving it hope. However, no one could have predicted what Hitler's reign was going to do. Rather than enriching their country, providing a more stable government, and boosting their lagging economy, World War II had a further devastating effect on Germany.

Newspaper article reporting on the Nazis
 "Kristallnacht" (The Night of the Broken Glass)

United States citizens were only partially aware of the atrocities happening under Hitler. There were murmurs of attacks on Jews. There were rumors of the concentration camps, but that is just what it was... rumors. No one could believe that something that horrible could happen. Why would anyone want to exterminate an entire race of people? It was unheard of. Yet, it was happening. 

As men marched off to war, it left a huge gap in the work force. No longer were there men working in the factories, working in the fields, working in domestic service. It was the women who jumped in to take over the reigns. Not only did they fill necessary employment opportunities, but these jobs helped the women to not only support the troops fighting in the war, but also to support themselves and their families. Women worked in factories helping to manufacture airplane parts, tank parts, weapons manufacturing. Wherever the need, the women were there to fill the spot. These jobs also empowered women. This was a time when many women stayed home to raise the children while their husbands' toiled away at work to support their family. Women took great pride in their work. They were lauded by the government for their willingness to work long hours in an effort to help in the war effort.

Europe saw even more change. They had to cope with enemy attacks on a daily basis. Women and children were sent to countries were there was less of a chance of an attack. There were also children being separated from their families in an effort to keep them safe. Transportation to these outlying places were sporadic at best. Parents had to make a gut wrenching decision. In the end, as parents will do, they decided that what little means of escape there were, the children needed passage more than the adults. Still, though, many families could not make the escape. They were left to deal with war on a daily basis. 

The aristocracy in Europe were not exempt to the ravages of war. Often, their domestic staff were conscripted into the war. Large country homes and estates were commandeered to be used as hospitals and rehabilitation services in which wounded soldiers would receive care before either being shipped home, or sent back to their units to continue the fight. Many a noblewomen became volunteer nurses or any kind of help that was needed. There was no surprise in seeing a Baroness carrying linens or emptying bed pans.  

Once the war ended, Europe had suffered such damage. Entire cities were wiped out. Nothing but bits and pieces of houses remained. Buildings stood precariously, with their blown out walls and fractured foundations. The war may have ended, but the struggle was just beginning. The Soviets took control of Eastern Germany, further declining their war wounds. The Americans were marching through towns where the concentration

Jews being herded into cattle cars being 

sent to the concentration camp

in Auschwitz, Poland.

camps were and were immediately overcome with such heart break to see all these people who were emaciated, who had been victims of cruel "experiments" at the hands of Nazi doctors and psychologists. Whole generations of families were expunged. And the conditions inside the camps were horrific. Huge buildings that served as pyres for burning Jewish bodies once they were of use no more. The soldiers were stupefied and horrified. Who would do such a thing? What kind of sick and twisted mind did these Nazi's have? To this day, you will hear stories denying the fact of the attempt at wiping out the Jewish race.

We need to take cautious steps in this day and age in order to not repeat what happened in World War II. Unfortunately, with weapons and armaments that are able to attack half a world away, if a war were to break out, World War II would seem like a small skirmish compared to the global damage that could occur in this day and age.

I pray that this post will encourage you to look further at the details of World War II. Then, take a good hard look at what is going on today. Winston Churchill used a statement  originally coined by George Santayana, who was a philosopher and literary critic, that says "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".