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WW 2 History Club

27-May-2015

POWsPOWs

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Meeting Agenda

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Administration

3. POW Introduction

4. Video

5. Q&A

6. Closing

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WW2 Vets

WW2 vets are meeting before each regular Wednesday

meeting( 1:30 to 3:00 )

See Lou Branch

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WW2 Vets

WW2 vets are meeting for breakfast at Lil’ Bits Cafe

(off Rte 466) the Tuesday following each regular Wednesday meeting

See Lou Branch

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Web Site

The place to find out what is going on

The place for interesting items on WW2 (daily)

www.ww2hc.org

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Future Meetings4th Wednesday of the month

Colony Cottage Jun 2015: German Military Commanders Jul 2015: British Military Commanders Aug 2015: End of War Alternatives Sep 2015: Beginning of War Alternatives Oct 2015: Nov 2015: Radio and WWII Dec 2015: FDR’s Tightrope

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Movie Night3rd Wednesday of the month

Seabreeze Rec Center

May 2015: Unbroken Jun 2015: TBD Jul 2015: TBD

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WWII Book ClubNEW!! 4th Friday of the month

Colony 1PM to 3PM

May 2015: UnbrokenJun 2015: Hitler’s EnforcersJul 2015:Aug 2015: Hell To PaySep 2015:Oct 2015:Nov 2015: The Murrow BoysDec 2015: Those Angry Days

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WW2 Vets flown to Wash DC Over 450 vets so far Lots more in the queue Next regular Mission is today WW2HC donated $3,500 in Feb’15 WW2HC now #2 in donations

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WW 2 History Club

27-May-2015

POWsPOWs

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POWs

A prisoner of war is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict.

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POWs

Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as:

isolating them from enemy combatants still in the field, releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after

hostilities, demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labor, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs.

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POWs

During WWII, millions of soldiers and non-combatants were taken prisoner.  The Geneva Convention dictates how prisoners should be treated but since not all nations signed and even those that did had "lapses" of memory, hundreds of thousands of POWs were treated less than humanly and for tens of thousands of POWs, "barbaric treatment" would be kind.

How a given nation/military treated its prisoners often depended on the nationality of the prisoner.  One tabulation (from Wikipedia):

 % that Died

Russian POWs held by Germans

57.5%

German POWs held by Yugoslavians

41.2%

German POWs held by Russians

35.8%

American POWs held by Japanese

33.0%

German POWs held by Eastern Europeans

32.9%

British POWs held by Japanese

24.8%

German POWs held by Czechoslovaks

5.0%

British POWs held by Germans 3.5%

German POWs held by French 2.58%

German POWs held by Americans

0.15%

German POWs held by British 0.03%

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POWs

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POWs