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Operation Pedro Pan shaped the lives of a generation of Cuban-Americans. Between 1960 and 1962, the program airlifted more than 14,000 Cuban children from Havana to the U.S. Fifty years later, those children are recalling how that flight changed their lives.

In Miami this weekend, a group of Cuban-Americans - now in their 50s and 60s - are gathering to commemorate the flights that took them from their homeland to America.

The journey began in early January 1959, after Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country. Fidel Castro arrived in Havana soon after and took control.

Back then, Jose Azel was an 11-year-old living in Havana. Today, he's a research associate at the University of Miami.

"It was clear very early on that the regime was moving in a totalitarian direction, with confiscations, expropriations of properties and that sort of thing," he says.

Azel was soon involved in underground activities. By 1961, his mother had died and his father decided to send him out of Cuba to America. Azel says the Castro regime had started separating children from their families as part of its literacy campaign.

He recalls having just a short conversation in which his father told him he was sending him away for his safety.

"So in the minds, I suspect, of most of the parents of the Pedro Pan children, this was going to be a short-term, temporary separation," he says.

As it turned out, Azel never saw his father again. His father died in the mid-1970s without being able to leave Cuba.
The Paper That Led Thousands To Flight
It wasn't until much later that Azel learned he was one of some 14,000 Cuban children who fled the island in similar circumstances. It was made possible because of a deal a priest in the Miami diocese - Father Bryan Walsh - worked out with the U.S. State Department. The agreement allowed him to sign visa waivers for children 16 or under.

Historian Victor Triay has written about Operation Pedro Pan in his book, Fleeing Castro. In 1961, Triay says, the failed Bay of Pigs operation ended hopes that Castro might soon be ousted. Castro also clearly announced that he was turning Cuba toward communism.

"They started closing down all the schools, including and especially the private and Catholic schools. So that caused a mass panic," he says. "And, of course, these visa waivers were photocopied in Cuba with Walsh's signature. They were accepted by the Cuban government, and so these visa waivers just started to spread around the island."

There were two direct Pan Am flights every day from Havana to Miami. Soon, they were full of children - some with families, many without.

Carmen Valdivia came with just her sister. At her home in a Miami suburb, she still has a yellowed letter, her visa waiver. The paper reads, "WAIVER APPROVED By Department of State and Immigration Services."

Valdivia says she and her sister arrived in Miami with almost nothing. Security personnel at the airport in Havana took their suitcases, leaving them just what they carried in their purses.

Valdivia still has the last gift her parents gave her in Cuba: an autographed book that they both signed.

In it, she wrote: "This autograph I bought at the last moment that I was in my Cuba, the beautiful. My parents got to sign it, and I am glad that they did because this is the only thing that I have from them, and they are what I love the most in this world."
Scattered Around America
About half of the children airlifted to Miami were, like Valdivia, reunited with family members within a few years.

Others went to foster families and boarding schools around the country. That was Carlos Eire's experience. Eire has written about those years in his book, Learning to Die in Miami.

He left Cuba with his brother in 1962. They shuttled from camp to a series of group homes and foster families until his mother rejoined them three years later. For him and most other Pedro Pan children, he says it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, but one that came with a sense of loss.

"Not having your parents there, you kind of feel a sense of betrayal, that you're betraying your parents if you're too happy," he says. "Even after my mom came, even at the best moments, it was always this feeling that, 'Gee, you know, my dad's not here.' You feel this sense that you should never or can never be really happy."

As adults, many of the Pedro Pan kids have done well. Eire went on to become a professor at Yale and a National Book Award-winning author. Other Pedro Pan kids include former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez and salsa star Willy Chirino.

There's something else, Eire says, that most of the Pedro Pan kids still share, 50 years later. They're firmly opposed to any normalization of relations with the Castro regime, the regime that was responsible for breaking up their families and forcing them from their homeland.

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Children Of Cuba Remember Their Flight To America

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Operation Pedro Pan shaped the lives of a generation of Cuban-Americans. Between 1960 and 1962, the program airlifted more than 14,000 Cuban children from Havana to the U.S. Fifty years later, those children are recalling how that flight changed their lives.

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The American Revolutionary War for Kids: Learn About the Revolutionary War for Children - FreeSchool

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In the early Middle Ages, under the feudal system , the life of a peasant was hard:

Even in the later Middle Ages, the medieval peasant's life was hard and the work back-breaking. It followed the seasons - ploughing in autumn, sowing in spring, harvesting in August. Work began at dawn, preparing the animals, and it finished at dusk, cleaning them down and putting them back into the stalls.

A peasant's hut was made of wattle and daub , with a thatch roof but no windows.

Inside the hut, a third of the area was penned off for the animals, which lived in the hut with the family. A fire burned in a hearth in the centre of the hut, so the air was permanently eye-wateringly smoky. Furniture was maybe a couple of stools, a trunk for bedding, and a few cooking pots.

Many peasants ' huts included a simple loom, which is a device used to weave cloth. The daughter would spin wool using spinng tools known as a distaff and spindle, and the wife would weave it into rough cloth.

Peasant food was mainly vegetables, plus anything that could be gathered - nuts, berries, nettles. The usual drink was weak, home-brewed beer. Honey provided a sweetener. If he ate bread, the peasant did not eat white wheat bread, but black rye bread.

The most difficult time was late spring, when food stores were running out, and new food was not yet growing. A poor harvest meant that some of the villagers would starve to death.

A male peasant would wear a rough tunic, with a hood and gloves, and leather shoes with wooden soles. Women wore a coarse gown over a sleeveless slip.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, when some peasants were growing quite rich, ' sumptuary laws' forbade them to wear clothes above their class.

Village life was not all misery. Holy days meant a day off work. Peasant fun was rough - wrestling, shin-kicking and cock-fighting. The ball was almost unnecessary to a medieval ball game, which was basically a fight with the next village. Occasionally a travelling musician or bear-baiter would pass through.

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BBC Bitesize - KS3 History - Everyday life in the Middle Ages - Revision 6

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In the early Middle Ages, under the feudal system , the life of a peasant was hard: Even in the later Middle Ages, the medieval peasant's life was hard and the work back-breaking. It followed the seasons - ploughing in autumn, sowing in spring, harvesting in August.

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LibGuides: G8 The Outsiders: Background and Context

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Home World History Wars, Battles & Armed Conflicts
Table of Contents

Also called:

Second World War

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Date:

September 3, 1939 - September 2, 1945

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What was the cause of World War II?

What countries fought in World War II?

Who were the leaders during World War II?

What were the turning points of World War II?

How did World War II end?

How many people died during World War II?

World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939-45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers- Germany, Italy, and Japan-and the Allies- France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000-50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.

Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the Soviet Union's power to nations of eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve power in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in the world away from the states of western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union.
(Read Sir John Keegan's Britannica entry on the Normandy Invasion.)

Axis initiative and Allied reaction

The outbreak of war

By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbour. Secret negotiations led on August 23-24 to the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.

Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About World War II

Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 pm on August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 am and at 5:00 pm, respectively. World War II had begun.

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World War II | Facts, Summary, History, Dates, Combatants, & Causes

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World War II was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during 1939-45. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). It was the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in human history.

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Sound Smart: China's Cultural Revolution | History

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The death toll from a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia hits 100 on October 11, 1793. By the time it ended, 5,000 people were dead.

Yellow fever, or American plague as it was known at the time, is a viral disease that begins with fever and muscle pain. Next, victims often become jaundiced (hence, the term "yellow" fever), as their liver and kidneys cease to function normally. Some of the afflicted then suffer even worse symptoms. Famous early American Cotton Mather described it as "turning yellow then vomiting and bleeding every way." Internal bleeding in the digestive tract causes bloody vomit. Many victims become delirious before dying.

The first yellow fever outbreaks in the United States occurred in late 1690s. Nearly 100 years later, in the late summer of 1793, refugees from a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean fled to Philadelphia. Within weeks, people throughout the city were experiencing symptoms. By the middle of October, 100 people were dying from the virus every day. Caring for the victims so strained public services that the local city government collapsed. Philadelphia was also the seat of the United States government at the time, but federal authorities simply evacuated the city in face of the raging epidemic.

Eventually, a cold front eliminated Philadelphia's mosquito population and the death toll fell to 20 per day by October 26. Today, a vaccine prevents yellow fever in much of the world, though thousands of people still die every year from the disease.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Yellow fever breaks out in Philadelphia | October 11, 1793 | HISTORY

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The death toll from a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia hits 100 on October 11, 1793. By the time it ended, 5,000 people were dead. Yellow fever, or American plague as it was known at the time, is a viral disease that begins with fever and muscle pain.

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Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they'd once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they'd made during Reconstruction, " Jim Crow " laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn't use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn't vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

Jim Crow laws weren't adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be "separate but equal."

World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren't given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with-to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn't find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the "mother of the modern-day civil rights movement." Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks' courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Sit-In at Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth's lunch counter where they'd first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael, who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power."

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 " Freedom Riders"-seven Black and six white activists-mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother's Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders-and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.-by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a "whites-only" facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals

March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington. It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King's speech in which he continually stated, "I have a dream..."

King's " I Have a Dream" speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964-legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination -into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.

Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as " Bloody Sunday." Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King's assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.

Sources

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation.
Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library.
Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives.
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey.
Little Rock School Desegregation (1957). The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks.
Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org.
The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center.
The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

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Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders | HISTORY

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The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its leaders were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks and many others.

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Welcome to The American Revolution Website

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KL Auschwitz-Birkenau

All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Shoah. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz.

The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing "local" prisons. The first transport of Poles reached KL Auschwitz from Tarnów prison on June 14, 1940. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s. It functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the extermination centers where the "Endlösung der Judenfrage" (the final solution to the Jewish question - the Nazi plan to murder European Jews) was carried out.

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APPEAL

Let us build memory! Donate any documents and other historical items in your possession to the Auschwitz Memorial

Memory is not something that is acquired once and stays on forever. The moment that the last eyewitnesses and survivors pass away, we have to work together to build on that which remains: the testimonies of those former prisoners and the authentic artifacts connected with Auschwitz. Each item can have its own enormous meaning and should find its place in the collection of the Auschwitz Memorial. Here, it will be preserved, studied, and displayed. Its place is here.

ELŻBIETA CAJZER - DZIAŁ ZBIORÓW

THE OFFICE FOR INFORMATION ON FORMER PRISONERS

THE DATA BASE WITH PARTLY PRESENTED DATA ABOUT AUSCHWITZ PRISONER

"On Auschwitz" podcast

The official podcast of the Auschwitz Memorial. The history of Auschwitz is exceptionally complex. It combined two functions: a concentration camp and an extermination center. Nazi Germany persecuted various groups of people there, and the camp complex continually expanded and transformed itself. In the podcast "On Auschwitz," we discuss the details of the history of the camp as well as our contemporary memory of this important and special place.

All our podcasts: auschwitz.org/podcasts

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On-line lessons

A visit to the authentic Memorial Site is a unique educational experience. However, people who do not have the ability to visit the former concentration camp of Auschwitz now have the opportunity to become acquainted with its history through education conducted via the Internet. See our online lessons here: lesson.auschwitz.org.

Poles in Auschwitz

After the liquidation of the Polish state and its institutions, the fundamental goal of German policy in occupied Poland was the exploitation of material and labor resources, and the removal of the local Polish population and ethnic minorities. This was done through expulsion and systematic extermination. The Polish lands were to be completely germanized, through German settlement in the depopulated area.

The first transport of Poles, 728 political prisoners, deported by Germans from Tarnów prison, reached the Auschwitz camp on June 14, 1940. This is why the Polish Parliament instituted June 14 the National Remembrance Day of the Victims of German Nazi Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps.

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Jews in Auschwitz

Until early 1942, the Nazis deported to Auschwitz only a relatively small number of Jews, who were sent there along with the non-Jewish prisoners, mostly Poles, who accounted for the majority of the camp population until mid-1942.

Read more...

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All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Shoah. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz.

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Jane Yanagi Diamond taught American History at a California high school, "but I couldn't talk about the internment," she says. "My voice would get all strange." Born in Hayward, California, in 1939, she spent most of World War II interned with her family at a camp in Utah.

Seventy-five years after the fact, the federal government's incarceration of some 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent during that war is seen as a shameful aberration in the U.S. victory over militarism and totalitarian regimes. Though President Ford issued a formal apology to the internees in 1976, saying their incarceration was a "setback to fundamental American principles," and Congress authorized the payment of reparations in 1988, the episode remains, for many, a living memory. Now, with immigration-reform proposals targeting entire groups as suspect, it resonates as a painful historical lesson.

The roundups began quietly within 48 hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. The announced purpose was to protect the West Coast. Significantly, the incarceration program got underway despite a warning; in January 1942, a naval intelligence officer in Los Angeles reported that Japanese-Americans were being perceived as a threat almost entirely "because of the physical characteristics of the people." Fewer than 3 percent of them might be inclined toward sabotage or spying, he wrote, and the Navy and the FBI already knew who most of those individuals were. Still, the government took the position summed up by John DeWitt, the Army general in command of the coast: "A Jap's a Jap. They are a dangerous element, whether loyal or not."

That February, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, empowering DeWitt to issue orders emptying parts of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona of issei-immigrants from Japan, who were precluded from U.S. citizenship by law-and nisei, their children, who were U.S. citizens by birth. Photographers for the War Relocation Authority were on hand as they were forced to leave their houses, shops, farms, fishing boats. For months they stayed at "assembly centers," living in racetrack barns or on fairgrounds. Then they were shipped to ten "relocation centers," primitive camps built in the remote landscapes of the interior West and Arkansas. The regime was penal: armed guards, barbed wire, roll call. Years later, internees would recollect the cold, the heat, the wind, the dust-and the isolation.

There was no wholesale incarceration of U.S. residents who traced their ancestry to Germany or Italy, America's other enemies.

The exclusion orders were rescinded in December 1944, after the tides of battle had turned in the Allies' favor and just as the Supreme Court ruled that such orders were permissible in wartime (with three justices dissenting, bitterly). By then the Army was enlisting nisei soldiers to fight in Africa and Europe. After the war, President Harry Truman told the much-decorated, all-nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team: "You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice-and you have won."

If only: Japanese-Americans met waves of hostility as they tried to resume their former lives. Many found that their properties had been seized for nonpayment of taxes or otherwise appropriated. As they started over, they covered their sense of loss and betrayal with the Japanese phrase Shikata ga nai -It can't be helped. It was decades before nisei parents could talk to their postwar children about the camps.

Paul Kitagaki Jr., a photojournalist who is the son and grandson of internees, has been working through that reticence since 2005. At the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he has pored over more than 900 pictures taken by War Relocation Authority photographers and others-including one of his father's family at a relocation center in Oakland, California, by one of his professional heroes, Dorothea Lange. From fragmentary captions he has identified more than 50 of the subjects and persuaded them and their descendants to sit for his camera in settings related to their internment. His pictures here, published for the first time, read as portraits of resilience.

Jane Yanagi Diamond, now 77 and retired in Carmel, California, is living proof. "I think I'm able to talk better about it now," she told Kitagaki. "I learned this as a kid-you just can't keep yourself in gloom and doom and feel sorry for yourself. You've just got to get up and move along. I think that's what the war taught me."
Subject interviews conducted by Paul Kitagaki Jr.

Buy

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The Injustice of Japanese-American Internment Camps Resonates Strongly to This Day

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Jane Yanagi Diamond taught American History at a California high school, "but I couldn't talk about the internment," she says. "My voice would get all strange." Born in Hayward, California, in 1939, she spent most of World War II interned with her family at a camp in Utah.

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Communists, Nationalists, and China's Revolutions: Crash Course World History #37

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Few disease outbreaks in the history of early America proved as tragic as the Philadelphia Yellow Fever epidemic of summer, 1793, and fewer still have lingered longer in historical memory. A bustling center of international trade and commerce that welcomed people, goods, and pathogens from around the world, Philadelphians were well-acquainted with infectious disease prior to the 1793 outbreak. The city had even known sporadic Yellow Fever outbreaks at various points throughout the eighteenth century. But that feared disease returned to Philadelphia with a vengeance in summer, 1793, via West Indian trading vessels carrying French refugees fleeing the island of Santo Domingo in light of long-standing civil unrest and slave rebellion. Over two thousand refugees flooded into Philadelphia, some of whom had succumbed to Yellow Fever at sea. With these trading vessels came the worst infectious disease outbreak the city had hitherto experienced.

​

Cases of the "pestilence," as some referred to Yellow Fever, spread rapidly from residential areas surrounding Philadelphia's port to other districts throughout the city. Though residents of impoverished quarters seemed particularly vulnerable to infection, none could escape the disease's terror. As word spread that Yellow Fever had returned to Philadelphia, many affluent residents fled for their country estates or homes of relatives. Commercial and governmental operations ground to a halt. Those who could not escape the city witnessed grisly scenes of sickness and death round seemingly every street corner. Yellow Fever claimed 5,000 lives, or ten percent of Philadelphia's population, between August 1 and November 9, 1793.

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Yellow Fever is a virus transmitted between humans by mosquitoes. This method of transmission was unknown in the eighteenth century, however; the role of mosquitoes in carrying the disease was first proposed in 1881, and viruses were not discovered until much later. The germ theory of the spread of infectious diseases remained unproven in the last years of the eighteenth century, which hampered consideration of possible causes of the disease. Proper prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Yellow Fever emerged as issues of frantic and often contentious public debate in Philadelphia and across the young United States. Philadelphia was the center of early-national American economic, political, and cultural life. The debilitation of the city due to disease posed potentially dire consequences for the region and, indeed, the entire country. A sense of mystery surrounding the disease's origin and transmission only deepened the public's terror.

​

Commentators during and after the Yellow Fever epidemic observed that the episode brought out the best and worst in Philadelphia's residents, as municipal leaders, prominent physicians, and everyday residents struggled to understand the cause of Yellow Fever, to manage the outbreak, and to escape its brutal path. While none succeeded in stamping out the disease, historical accounts of the city's lively response to the fever reveal much about the civic, cultural, and intellectual workings of early America's largest and most prosperous city.

​

The lesson presented here-What the Doctor Ordered: Dr. Benjamin Rush Responds to Yellow Fever-is best implemented at the end of a lengthier unit on the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793, after students have acquired sufficient contextual background to pursue independent work with primary sources related to the epidemic.

Topics

18th century

Community and Public Service

Philadelphia

Science and Medicine

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Big Ideas

Pennsylvania History

Perspective on Events

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Essential Questions

What role do multiple causations play in describing a historic event?

What role does analysis have in historical construction?

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Concepts

Historical skills (organizing information chronologically, explaining historical issues, locating sources and investigate materials, synthesizing and evaluating evidence, and developing arguments and interpretations based on evidence) are used by an analytical thinker to create a historical construction.

State and local history can offer an individual, discerning judgment in public and personal life, supply examples for living, and thinking about one's self in the dimensions of time and space.

Biography is a historical construct used to reveal positive and/or negative influences an individual can have on Pennsylvania's society.

Textual evidence, material artifacts, the built environment, and historic sites are central to understanding the history of Pennsylvania.

Competencies

Analyze the interaction of cultural, economic, geographic, political, and social relations for a specific time and place.

Synthesize a rationale for the study of individuals in Pennsylvania history.

Analyze a primary source for accuracy and bias and connect it to a time and place in Pennsylvania.

Background Material for Teacher

Halse Anderson, Laurie. Fever 1793. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000.

Estes, J. Worth, and Billy G. Smith. A Melancholy Scene of Devastation: The Public Response to the 1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic. Canton, MA: College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Library Company of Philadelphia, 1997.

Howell, J.H. Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949.

Rosenberg, Charles E. "The Therapeutic Revolution: Medicine, Meaning, and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century America." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 20, no. 4 (Summer, 1977): 485-506.

" Yellow Fever" by Simon Finger - an essay in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia

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Many other Philadelphia organizations have school programs and lesson on Yellow Fever. See the links and related content on this page for some examples.

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End of Unit Assessment

Building on their primary-source knowledge of Dr. Rush's Yellow Fever diagnosis and treatment procedures, students will analyze two letters from friends of Dr. Rush written during the 1793 epidemic, and one letter that Rush wrote to a fellow doctor during the outbreak. The letters offer opposing viewpoints on the effectiveness of Rush's methods. Students will: 1) Read the documents; 2) Summarize the documents' content; 3) Evaluate the merits of Dr. Rush's decision-making; 4) Place the documents in the context of Yellow Fever patient letters analyzed in class; and 5) Consider how they and their family might have reacted to the Yellow Fever epidemic, if they had lived in Philadelphia in 1793.

​

Distribute one "Assignment" document packet(including instructions, two letters, and questions worksheet) to each student. Instruct students to open the document packets to the directions page. Ask for volunteers to read the directions and essay questions aloud. Page through the packets with the students, so that they become familiar with each letter. Review vocabulary words located on the last two pages of the Document Packet. Students will write three to eight-sentence responses to each of the five essay questions. When answering the questions, students should draw on notes taken during class on their "What the Doctor Ordered: Dr. Benjamin Rush Responds to Yellow Fever" Case Sheet as well as new insights gleaned from the letters in the Assessment Document Packet. Remind students that, to get full credit for the assignment, they must turn in both the completed case sheet and the essay question answers.

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Assess student responses on four criteria: 1) Use of complete sentences; 2) Correct grammar and spelling; 3) Use of unit vocabulary words; and 4) Extent to which students support their claims with evidence drawn from primary sources (both the Case Sheet and letters in the Assessment Document Packet). Exemplary responses exhibit high comprehension of primary source content, ability to relate primary sources to contextual knowledge of the Yellow Fever epidemic, and empathetic insights into the plight of Philadelphia's doctors and patients during the outbreak.

If class time allows following assignment completion, ask students to share thoughts about how they think they and their families might have reacted to Yellow Fever, if they had lived in Philadelphia in 1793.

​

Links
Saving the Philadelphia Lazaretto: One of the Oldest Immigration and Quarantine Stations (1801-1895) - A Lesson Plan

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few disease outbreaks in the history of early america proved as tragic as the philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of summer

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and fewer still have lingered longer in historical memory. a bustling center of international trade and commerce that welcomed people

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philadelphians were well-acquainted with infectious disease prior to the 1793 outbreak.

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Diagnosing and Treating Yellow Fever in Phila, 1793

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Few disease outbreaks in the history of early America proved as tragic as the Philadelphia Yellow Fever epidemic of summer, 1793, and fewer still have lingered longer in historical memory. A bustling center of international trade and commerce that welcomed people, goods, and pathogens from around the world, Philadelphians were well-acquainted with infectious disease prior to the 1793 outbreak.

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BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

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On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and from the air. World War II had begun.

Why did Germany invade Poland?

Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war-what would become the " blitzkrieg " strategy.

Germany's blitzkrieg approach was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks and artillery. After the German forces had plowed their way through, devastating a swath of territory, infantry moved in, picking off any remaining resistance.

Once Hitler had a base of operations within the target country, he immediately began setting up "security" forces to annihilate all enemies of his Nazi ideology, whether racial, religious or political. Concentration camps for slave laborers and the extermination of civilians went hand-in-hand with German rule of a conquered nation. For example, within one day of the German invasion of Poland, Hitler was already setting up SS "Death's Head" regiments to terrorize the populace.

Polish resistance falters

The Polish army made several severe strategic miscalculations early on. Although 1 million strong, the Polish forces were severely under-equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on, rather than falling back to more natural defensive positions.

The outmoded thinking of the Polish commanders coupled with the antiquated state of its military were simply no match for the overwhelming and modern-mechanized German forces. And, of course, any hope the Poles might have had of a Soviet counter-response was dashed with the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Nonaggression Pact.

Great Britain would respond with bombing raids over Germany three days later.

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On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and from the air. World War II had begun. Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east.

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We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

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We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

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The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao Zedong's bid to use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist party.

Its bewildering complexity and almost unfathomable brutality was such that to this day historians struggle to make sense of everything that occurred during the period.

However, Mao's decision to launch the "revolution" in May 1966 is now widely interpreted as an attempt to destroy his enemies by unleashing the people on the party and urging them to purify its ranks.

When the mass mobilisation kicked off party newspapers depicted it as an epochal struggle that would inject new life into the socialist cause. "Like the red sun rising in the east, the unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is illuminating the land with its brilliant rays," one editorial read.

In fact, the Cultural Revolution crippled the economy, ruined millions of lives and thrust China into 10 years of turmoil, bloodshed, hunger and stagnation.

Gangs of students and Red Guards attacked people wearing "bourgeois clothes" on the street, "imperialist" signs were torn down and intellectuals and party officials were murdered or driven to suicide.

After violence had run its bloody course, the country's rulers conceded it had been a catastrophe that had brought nothing but "grave disorder, damage and retrogression".

An official party reckoning described it as a catastrophe which had caused "the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic" in 1949.

Whose idea was it and what was the aim?

The Cultural Revolution was the brainchild of China's 'Great Helmsman', Chairman Mao Zedong.

Seventeen years after his troops seized power, Mao saw his latest political campaign as a way of reinvigorating the communist revolution by strengthening ideology and weeding out opponents.

"Our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road... so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system," one early directive stated.

Frank Dikötter, the author of a new book on the period, says Mao hoped his movement would make China the pinnacle of the socialist universe and turn him into "the man who leads planet Earth into communism."

Chinese red guards during the cultural revolution in 1966. Photograph: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images

But it was also an attempt by the elderly dictator, whose authority had been badly hit by the calamitous Great Famine of the 1950s, to reassert control over the party by obliterating enemies, real or imagined.

"It was a power struggle waged... behind the smokescreen of a fictitious mass movement," Belgian scholar Pierre Ryckmans wrote in his damning account of the Cultural Revolution, The Chairman's New Clothes.

How exactly did it start?

Most historians agree the Cultural Revolution began in mid-May 1966 when party chiefs in Beijing issued a document known as the "May 16 Notification". It warned that the party had been infiltrated by counter-revolutionary "revisionists" who were plotting to create a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie".

A fortnight later, on 1 June, the party's official mouthpiece newspaper urged the masses to "clear away the evil habits of the old society" by launching an all-out assault on "monsters and demons".

Chinese students sprung into action, setting up Red Guard divisions in classrooms and campuses across the country. By August 1966 - so-called Red August - the mayhem was in full swing as Mao's allies urged Red Guards to destroy the "four olds" - old ideas, old customs, old habits and old culture.

Schools and universities were closed and churches, shrines, libraries, shops and private homes ransacked or destroyed as the assault on "feudal" traditions began.

Gangs of teenagers in red armbands and military fatigues roamed the streets of cities such as Beijing and Shanghai setting upon those with "bourgeois" clothes or reactionary haircuts. "Imperialist" street signs were torn down.

Party officials, teachers and intellectuals also found themselves in the cross-hairs: they were publicly humiliated, beaten and in some cases murdered or driven to suicide after vicious "struggle sessions". Blood flowed as Mao ordered security forces not to interfere in the Red Guards' work. Nearly 1,800 people lost their lives in Beijing in August and September 1966 alone.

What happened next?

After the initial explosion of student-led "red terror", the chaos spread rapidly. Workers joined the fray and China was plunged into what historians describe as a state of virtual civil war, with rival factions battling it out in cities across the country.

By late 1968 Mao realised his revolution had spiralled out of control. In a bid to rein in the violence he issued instructions to send millions of urban youth down to the countryside for "re-education".

He also ordered the army to restore order, effectively transforming China into a military dictatorship, which lasted until about 1971. As the army fought to bring the situation under control, the death toll soared.

Between 1971 and the Cultural Revolution's official end, in 1976, a semblance of normality returned to China. US president Richard Nixon even toured the country in February 1972 in a historic visit that re-established ties between Washington and Beijing.

It was, in Nixon's words, "the week that changed the world".

How many victims were there?

Historians believe somewhere between 500,000 and two million people lost their lives as a result of the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps the worst affected region was the southern province of Guangxi where there were reports of mass killings and even cannibalism.

Appalling acts of barbarity also occurred in Inner Mongolia where authorities unleashed a vicious campaign of torture against supposed separatists.

Even China's feline population suffered as Red Guards tried to eliminate what they claimed was a symbol of "bourgeois decadence". "Walking through the streets of the capital at the end of August [1966], people saw dead cats lying by the roadside with their front paws tied together," writes Dikötter.

Yet contrary to popular belief, the government was responsible for most of the bloodshed, not the Red Guards.

"We read a lot of horror stories about students beating their teachers to death in the stairwell," says Andrew Walder, the author of China Under Mao.

"[But] based on the government's own published histories well over half, if not two-thirds of the people who were killed or imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution suffered that from 1968 to early 1970" as the army moved in to halt the violence.

The lives of some of the Communist party's most powerful figures were upended by the turbulence, including future leader Deng Xiaoping, who was purged in 1967, and Xi Zhongxun, the father of China's current president, Xi Jinping, who was publicly humiliated, beaten and sent into exile.

President Xi's half-sister, Xi Heping, is said to have taken her own life after being persecuted.

How were foreigners affected?

As chaos enveloped Beijing in the summer of 1966, foreign diplomats found themselves at the eye of the storm. "Earplugs became standard embassy issue," the former British ambassador Percy Cradock writes in his memoirs recalling how a cacophony of songs praising "our beloved Chairman Mao" became the soundtrack of life in the capital.

By the following year things had taken a more sinister turn. Red Guards laid siege to the Soviet, French and Indonesian embassies, torched the Mongolian ambassador's car and hung a sign outside the British mission that read: "Crush British Imperialism!" One night, in late August, diplomats were forced to flee from the British embassy as it was ransacked and burned. Outside protesters chanted: "Kill! Kill!".

Anthony Grey, a Reuters journalist in Beijing, spent more than two years in captivity after being detained by Chinese authorities in July 1967.

What was the Little Red Book?

The Cultural Revolution's official handbook was the Little Red Book, a pocket-sized collection of quotations from Mao that offered a design for Red Guard life.

"Be resolute, fear no sacrifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory!" read one famous counsel.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Little Red Book reading sessions were held on public buses and even in the skies above China, as air hostesses preached Mao's words of wisdom to their passengers. During the 1960s, the Little Red Book is said to have been the most printed book on earth, with more than a billion copies printed.

Peasants study Chairman Mao's quotations in the Little Red Book - the 'bible' of the Cultural Revolution during a break from rice planting, 1970, Guangxi, China. Photograph: Sinopix/REX/Shutterstock

When did it end?

The Cultural Revolution officially came to an end when Mao died on 9 September 1976 at the age of 82.

In a bid to move on - and avoid discrediting Mao too much - party leaders ordered that the Chairman's widow, Jiang Qing, and a group of accomplices be publicly tried for masterminding the chaos. They were known as the "Gang of Four".

Jiang contested the charges claiming she had merely been "Chairman Mao's dog" but was sentenced to death in 1981, later reduced to life in prison. In 1991, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, she hung herself.

How did the Cultural Revolution affect China?

Mao had hoped his revolutionary movement would turn China into a beacon of communism. But 50 years on many believe it had the opposite effect, paving the way for China's embrace of capitalism in the 1980s and its subsequent economic boom.

"A common verdict is: no Cultural Revolution, no economic reform," Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals write in their book on the period, Mao's Last Revolution. "The Cultural Revolution was so great a disaster that it provoked an even more profound cultural revolution, precisely the one that Mao intended to forestall."

Another enduring legacy, experts say, is the obsession of today's rulers with stability and political control.

Leaders such as Xi Jinping, a 13-year-old Beijing schoolboy when the cultural revolution began, had a front row seat to the mayhem, and some even partook in the violence.

"They saw a China that was totally chaotic for about two years and they saw atrocities sometimes," says Walder, a Stanford University expert on the period. "They view the loss of the party's control as something that will lead to chaos."

Dikötter believes the nightmarish upheaval also served to destroy any remaining faith the Chinese people had in their Great Teacher. "Even before Mao died, people buried Maoism."

How is the Cultural Revolution remembered today?

After Mao's death, the Communist party made some attempts to confront the horrors of the previous decade. Some were punished for the violence while those unfairly purged or persecuted were rehabilitated.

But those efforts petered out in the early 1980s as Beijing became wary of implicating itself in the killing at a time of growing opposition from Chinese youth. Academics were discouraged from digging into the party's inconvenient truth.

Experts say Beijing would seek to mark this year's 50th anniversary with deafening silence.

"They won't go there - it is just too damaging to the party," says MacFarquhar. "The party is guilty of three massive blows to the Chinese people: the [Great] Famine, the Cultural Revolution and the destruction of the environment which is ongoing now and may in fact be more deadly that the other two in the long run. And the last thing it wants to say is that we were the guilty ones."

However, a bitter public row over a Mao-themed extravaganza held in Beijing earlier this month has unexpectedly thrust the decade-long upheaval back into the headlines.

What should I read to understand the Cultural Revolution?

The seminal work on the period is Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFaquhuar and Michael Schoenhals, a blow-by-blow account of the turmoil.

An earlier book by Schoenhals - China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-69: Not a Dinner Party - contains a trove of documents, speeches and photographs, that chronicle the country's descent into anarchy.

Perhaps the most withering critique of the political mobilisation can be found in The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, by Belgian scholar Pierre Ryckmans.

Ji Xianlin's The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a harrowing first-person account of the period. First published in 1998 and recently translated into English, the book recounts the hardship of a Peking University academic who spent nearly nine months as a prisoner of the Red Guards.

Another powerful Cultural Revolution memoir is Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, a Chinese graduate of the London School of Economics whose life was turned upside down by the Red Guards in 1967.

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The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China's political convulsion

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Fifty years ago one of the bloodiest eras in history began, in which as many as two million people died. But who started it and what was it for?

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Great Depression: Causes, Definition & Dates | HISTORY

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The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in world history. Learn about the Dust Bowl, New Deal, causes of the Great Depression, a Great Depression timeline more.

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Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History #39

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Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Written by Robert Frost!:)

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Sharecropping is a type of farming in which families rent small plots of land from a landowner in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the end of each year. Different types of sharecropping have been practiced worldwide for centuries, but with the southern economy in disarray after the abolition of slavery and the devastation of the Civil War, sharecropping enabled landowners to reestablish a labor force, while giving poor whites and freed Black people a means of subsistence. About two-thirds of sharecroppers were white, and one-third were Black. The system severely restricted the economic mobility of the laborers, leading to conflicts during the Reconstruction era.

Forty Acres and a Mule

During the final months of the Civil War, tens of thousands of freed enslaved people left their plantations to follow the victorious Union Army troops of General William T. Sherman across Georgia and the Carolinas.

In January 1865, in an effort to address the issues caused by this growing number of refugees, Sherman issued Special Field Order Number 15, a temporary plan granting each freed family 40 acres of land on the islands and coastal region of Georgia. The Union Army also donated some of its mules, unneeded for battle purposes, to the former enslaved people.

Did you know? In 1870, only around 30,000 African Americans in the South owned land (usually small plots), compared with 4 million others who did not.

When the war ended three months later, many freed Blacks saw the "40 acres and a mule" policy as proof that they would finally be able to work their own land after years of servitude. Owning land was the key to economic independence and autonomy.

Instead, as one of the first acts of Reconstruction, President Andrew Johnson ordered all land under federal control to be returned to its previous owners in the summer of 1865.

The Freedmen's Bureau, created to aid millions of former enslaved people in the postwar era, had to inform the newly free men and women that they could either sign labor contracts with planters or be evicted from the land they had occupied. Those who refused or resisted were eventually forced out by U.S. Army troops.

Black Codes

In the early years of Reconstruction, most Black people living in rural areas of the South were left without land and forced to work as laborers on large white-owned farms and plantations in order to earn a living. Many clashed with former owners bent on reestablishing a gang-labor system similar to the one that prevailed under slavery.

In an effort to regulate the labor force and reassert white supremacy in the South, legislatures in former Confederate states soon passed restrictive laws denying Black people legal equality or political rights, and created Black codes that forced the formerly enslaved to sign yearly labor contracts or be arrested and jailed for vagrancy.

These Black codes provoked a fierce resistance among the freedmen and undermined support in the North for President Johnson's Reconstruction policies. A Republican victory in the Congressional elections of 1866 led to the passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, beginning a new phase of Reconstruction.

During this period, the passage of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment granted Black Americans the right to vote, equality before the law and other rights of citizenship-although those rights would continue to be denied by a number of legal and economic devices in the era of Jim Crow laws and segregation.

Despite giving Black Americans the rights of citizens, the federal government (and the Republican-controlled state governments formed during this phase of Reconstruction) took little concrete action to help freed Black people in their quest to own their own land.

Instead of receiving wages for working an owner's land-and having to submit to supervision and harsh discipline-most poor farm laborers preferred to rent land for a fixed payment.

By the early 1870s, the system known as sharecropping had come to dominate agriculture across the South. Under this system, families would rent small plots of land, or shares, to work themselves; in return, they would give a portion of their crop to the landowner at the end of the harvest season.

The system was used by white families as well as Blacks: The majority of U.S. sharecroppers (about two-thirds) were white, and in many areas of the rural South, only about one-quarter of white people owned land.

'King Cotton' Dethroned

The sharecropping system also locked much of the South into a reliance on cotton-just at a time when the price for cotton was plunging.

In addition, while sharecropping gave poor farm laborers some autonomy in their daily work and social lives, and freed them from the gang-labor system that had dominated during the slavery era, it often resulted in sharecroppers owing more to the landowner (for the use of tools and other supplies, for example) than they were able to repay.

Some sharecroppers managed to acquire enough money to move from sharecropping to renting or owning land by the end of the 1860s, but many more went into debt or were forced by poverty or the threat of violence to sign unfair and exploitative sharecropping or labor contracts that left them little hope of improving their situation.

Although both poor whites and Blacks lacked much social or economic mobility, sharecroppers started to organize for better pay and working conditions, and the racially integrated Southern Tenant Farmers Union, formed in the 1930s during the Great Depression, began to exercise some bargaining power.

But by the 1940s-with increased mechanization and better-paying jobs in urban areas-sharecropping began to disappear in the United States, though some form of it still exists in a handful of areas. Sharecropping is routinely practiced today in a few countries such as Bangladesh, Ghana, Zimbabwe, India and Pakistan.

Sources

Sharecropping. PBS.
Sharecropping. New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Sharecropping, Black Land Acquisition, and White Supremacy (1868-1900). Sanford School of Public Policy: Duke University.

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Sharecropping: Definition and Dates | HISTORY

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Sharecropping is a system of farming in which families, both Black and white, rent small plots of land from a landowner in return for a portion of their crop.

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also spelled:

Taleban

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date:

1994 - present

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Taliban, ultraconservative political and religious faction that emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the collapse of Afghanistan's communist regime, and the subsequent breakdown in civil order. It began as a small force of Afghan religious students and scholars seeking to confront crime and corruption; the faction owes its name, Taliban (Pashto: Ṭālebān, "Students"), to this initial membership.

Origin and first regime

The Taliban emerged in the aftermath of the Afghan War (1978-92). Afghanistan's new government failed to establish civil order outside of Kabul, and much of the country was subject to frequent extortion and assault from local militias and warlords. Facing mass displacement during the war, many Afghans found solidarity in the religious rhetoric of the mujahideen resistance and opportunity in schools of Islamic sciences (called madrasahs) in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. In 1994 a group of former fighters, associated with a madrasah in a village of Kandahār province, successfully subdued a local warlord and began pacifying nearby areas. The faction, which enjoyed popular support with its promise of security and its religious fervour, quickly grew into the movement now known as the Taliban. By late 1996 the Taliban had seized the capital, Kabul, and gained effective control over some two-thirds of the country.

The Taliban faced significant resistance, especially after it asserted its own interpretation of law and order. It combined a strict religious ideology-a mixture of Deobandi traditionalism and Wahhābī puritanism-with a conservative Pashtun social code (Pashtunwali) to create a brutally repressive regime. Its policies included the near-total exclusion of women from public life (including employment and education), the systematic destruction of non-Islamic artistic relics (as occurred in the town of Bamiyan), and the implementation of harsh criminal punishments. Resistance was particularly pronounced among non-Pashtun ethnic groups-namely, the Tajik, the Uzbek, and the Hazara-in the north, west, and central parts of the country, who saw the power of the predominantly Pashtun Taliban as a continuation of the traditional Pashtun hegemony of the country. By 2001 the Taliban controlled all but a small section of northern Afghanistan, and only Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates ever recognized the regime.

The Afghanistan War and removal from power

Apart from the Taliban's unsettling disregard for human rights, many countries were concerned about the Taliban allowing refuge to Osama bin Laden, who had helped organize a network of foreign-born Muslim fighters during the Afghan War. That network, al-Qaeda, had evolved into a network of Islamist militants who sought a violent struggle to free the Islamic world from non-Muslim influence and had orchestrated several attacks against the United States. Even after bin Laden and al-Qaeda were found responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and on the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., that had occurred on September 11, 2001, the Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden. The United States and its allies began bombarding Afghanistan in October and supported the efforts of the Northern Alliance, a group of anti-Taliban factions in Afghanistan that had been resisting the Taliban's takeover of the country. In early December the Northern Alliance succeeded in toppling the Taliban regime.

Although driven from power and fractured, the Taliban survived, and many of its core members remained at large throughout the Afghanistan War (2001-14). In 2005 the Taliban began enjoying a resurgence, showing indications of greater coordination and resilience among its fighters. Its founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, remained in hiding with infrequent contact, but senior commanders such as Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar were increasingly centralizing the group's command structure. It adopted new tactics modeled on those being used by insurgents in the Iraq War, including the use of suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices. Recruitment was prolific, drawing on thousands of Afghans disenchanted by widespread corruption in the new Afghan government and resentment toward the casualties and destruction that accompanied the ongoing U.S. and NATO military operations. In 2009, as fighting grew to unprecedented levels, newly elected U.S. Pres. Barack Obama ordered a surge in the U.S. troop presence in the war.

In July 2015 the Afghan government discovered that Omar had died in 2013 in a hospital in Pakistan. His deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour briefly served as his successor until he was killed in a U.S. air strike in Pakistan in May 2016. Hibatullah Akhundzada took leadership later that month; like his predecessors, he remained relatively secluded and appeared to play a minimal role in directing military operations. The militant wing of the Taliban became increasingly dominated by the Haqqani network, whose leader, Sirajuddin, served as deputy leader of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the Taliban's continued resilience and the inability of Afghanistan's central government to exert control throughout the country prompted the central government to seek reconciliation with the Taliban. Officials under Pres. Hamid Karzai had met informally with Taliban leaders, most notably Baradar, and the first formal meeting was held under Pres. Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban continued to see the central government as fundamentally illegitimate, however, and insisted on talks with the foreign power that had installed it: the United States.

The Taliban and the United States began meeting in 2018, with the help of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, the only countries to have a diplomatic relationship with both parties. The discussions focused on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, although the United States also sought to reconcile the Taliban and the central government. Discussions were eventually held with the central government in 2019, which led in July to an agreement on general principles for future negotiations, but the Taliban's representatives remained focused on first reaching a deal with the United States. They reportedly came to an agreement in principle in September, but discussions were disrupted after an attack by the Taliban killed a U.S. service member.

A deal with the United States was signed in late February 2020. In exchange for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops over a 14-month period, the Taliban agreed to end its attacks on U.S. forces and prevent al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]), and their affiliates from operating in Afghanistan. The deal also included an agreement to begin talks with the central government within 10 days, but negotiations were delayed until September because of the central government's reluctance to carry out a prisoner swap promised to the Taliban by the United States. Little progress was made during the negotiations, which lasted into 2021. Nevertheless, in April the United States reiterated its commitment to complete its withdrawal, although the deadline for withdrawal was delayed from May to September.

As its confrontations with U.S. forces came to an end and the completion of the U.S. withdrawal drew near, an emboldened Taliban rapidly took control of dozens of districts in May-June and closed in on several provincial capitals. The group appeared to lack the manpower and firepower to hold its gains against the larger and better-equipped armed forces of the central government, but the latter's lack of coordination and lack of responsiveness to the insurgency allowed the Taliban to overrun the country within months. By mid-August the central government had collapsed and the Taliban had captured nearly all of the country, including Kabul.

With the Taliban seemingly eager to win legitimacy both domestically and internationally, many observers hoped to see a more pliant and conciliatory regime than the one the Taliban had run before. Early indications, however, showed little resolve for change: in September it filled its transitional government with hard-liners, reopened secondary schools only for boys, and reinstituted the brutal criminal punishments for which it had been known. The leadership, meanwhile, struggled to exert unified authority throughout the organization, which for years had been operating under a decentralized command structure. The disunity made it difficult to enforce policies universally and to hold local forces accountable, leading to stark contradictions between the Taliban's public statements and its actions on the ground.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Adam Zeidan.

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Taliban, ultraconservative political and religious faction that emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the collapse of Afghanistan's communist regime, and the subsequent breakdown in civil order. Learn more about the Taliban in this article.

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international relations and national security

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Read CNN's September 11 Fast Facts and learn more about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

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Introduction

After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement in what were both sides' most intensive efforts yet to end the war. Central to the deal is a significant drawdown of U.S. troops and guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists.

However, experts stress that the deal between U.S. President Donald J. Trump's administration and the Taliban leadership is only the first step to achieving lasting peace. The bigger challenge, they say, will be negotiating an agreement between the Islamist fundamentalist group and the Afghan government on Afghanistan's future. Many Afghans, exhausted by a war that has killed thousands of people and forced millions to flee as refugees, fear that a U.S. withdrawal could spark new conflict and eventually allow the Taliban to regain control.

What did the United States and the Taliban agree to?

Following nine rounds of discussions, negotiators signed a peace agreement in February 2020 that addresses four main issues:

Cease-fire. Negotiators agreed to a temporary reduction in violence and said that a lasting cease-fire among U.S., Taliban, and Afghan forces will be part of intra-Afghan negotiations.

Withdrawal of foreign forces. The United States agreed to reduce its number of troops in the country from roughly 12,000 to 8,600 within 135 days. If the Taliban follows through on its commitments, all U.S. and other foreign troops will leave Afghanistan within fourteen months. Experts have cautioned that pulling troops out too quickly could be destabilizing.

Intra-Afghan negotiations. The Taliban agreed to start talks with the Afghan government in March 2020. Throughout the negotiating process, the Taliban had resisted direct talks with the government, calling it an American puppet. But the Taliban has more recently indicated that talks are possible, with deputy Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqaniwriting in a New York Times op-ed, "If we can reach an agreement with a foreign enemy, we must be able to resolve intra-Afghan disagreements through talks."

Counterterrorism assurances. The United States invaded Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks largely to eliminate the threat of terrorism, so it seeks to halt terrorist activities in the country, including by al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State. As part of the agreement, the Taliban guaranteed that Afghanistan will not be used by any of its members, other individuals, or terrorist groups to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.

U.S. officials have also stressed protecting women's rights. Prior to the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, the group shuttered girls' schools and prevented women from working, among other abuses. This issue could be discussed during intra-Afghan talks.

What are challenges to the peace process?

While the peace process is supported by a vast majority of Afghans, many issues remain to be worked out during intra-Afghan negotiations, including sharing power, disarming and reintegrating [PDF] Taliban fighters into society, and determining the future of the country's democratic institutions and constitution. These negotiations were already off to a precarious start following the U.S.-Taliban deal in February. The United States and the Taliban agreed to the release of up to five thousand Taliban prisoners in exchange for up to one thousand Afghan security forces, but the Afghan government said it had not committed to such a swap.

The process could be complicated by a weak central government, afflicted by ethnic, sectarian, and tribal differences. The country's 2019 election was marred by many problems: only 1.8 million out of 9 million registered voters cast ballots, polling stations were attacked, and results weren't released for months. When incumbent President Ashraf Ghani was announced the winner, his challenger, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, contested the results and said he would form his own government.

At the same time, experts say the Taliban is stronger now than at any point in the last eighteen years. With an estimated sixty thousand fighters, it controls many districts throughout the country and continues to launch major attacks, including in Kabul and on Afghan security bases. It earns millions of dollars from opium poppy cultivation [PDF] and the illegal drug trade, which pose further problems for the peace process. Some analysts are also worried that rank-and-file Taliban fighters might not abide by a peace deal.

Countries on Afghanistan's borders, including Pakistan, which serves as the home base for the Taliban leadership, could feel excluded from talks and mobilize opposition against them. Additionally, the threat of terrorism is still present, with more than twenty terrorist groups operating inside the country, according to Afghan officials. Many of the groups are aligned with the Taliban or al-Qaeda, and the resurgence of the Islamic State is a concern.

Why are U.S. troops in Afghanistan?

The United States invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, which were carried out by al-Qaeda. The Taliban, a predominantly Pashtun, Islamist fundamentalist group that had ruled Afghanistan since 1996, provided refuge to al-Qaeda and refused to hand over terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. At the start of the war, in October 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush said the U.S. mission was to "disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime."

U.S.-led forces quickly ousted the Taliban, which retreated to Pakistan. From there, it has continued to wage an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, whose president was democratically elected in 2004. The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) mission then worked to bolster the Kabul government's authority and reconstruct Afghanistan, in addition to fighting the Taliban insurgency.

In 2014, U.S.-led NATO forces ended their combat mission and passed on security responsibilities to the Afghan army and police. However, around seventeen thousand NATO troops, including U.S. service members, stayed in the country to train, advise, and assist Afghan security forces.

What's been the toll of the war?

More than 157,000 people have died in the war [PDF] since 2001, according to researchers for the Costs of War Project at Brown University. More than 43,000 civilians have died, and by 2018 there were almost 2.5 million Afghan refugees worldwide, according to the UN refugee agency. More than 2,400 Americans have been killed and another 20,000 injured. Over 1,100 NATO troops have died. Analysts estimate that about 45,000 Afghan troops and police officers were killed in the past five years. Tens of thousands of Taliban fighters are believed to have been killed since 2001.

The war is estimated to have cost the United States around $2 trillion, including money spent on counternarcotics efforts, development projects, and support for Afghan security forces. Billions of dollars have been spent on medical and disability care for U.S. veterans.

What's the role of other outside powers?

The U.S.-Taliban peace process has received wide support, including from NATO partners and from China and Russia.

Pakistan. The Taliban formed in Pakistan in the 1990s following the Soviet Union's departure from Afghanistan. Many of its original fighters were Pashtuns who studied in Pakistani madrassas. After the U.S. invasion, Pakistan granted the Taliban safe havens and its Inter-Services Intelligence, which was thought to have some degree of control over the Taliban for years, provided military expertise and fundraising assistance. Experts say Pakistan now desires an Afghan government that includes the Taliban and is friendlier toward Islamabad than it is to New Delhi. (Officials in Islamabad have long feared Pakistani rival India gaining influence in Afghanistan). Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has denied that the country has provided support to the Taliban and he has supported negotiations. Pakistani officials opened up a channel for U.S. negotiators to initially reach the Taliban.

India. New Delhi is a strong supporter of the Afghan government and has given $3 billion to develop infrastructure and cultivate business in Afghanistan since 2001. Its main goals are to minimize Pakistan's influence and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for anti-India militants. The Indian government did not back U.S. efforts to reach an agreement with the Taliban and disagreed with legitimizing the group as a political actor.

Iran. Shiite-majority Iran has long viewed the Taliban, a Sunni group, as a foe, especially since it has received support from Iranian rivals Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran accepted U.S. efforts to overthrow the Taliban in 2001 and supported the Afghan government. Iranian leaders have since acknowledged that the Taliban will continue to maintain some power in Afghanistan, so they have started working to improve ties. The trafficking of drugs from Afghanistan through Iran and opium addiction in Iran are problems in the two countries' relationship.

Russia. Moscow hopes to rekindle ties with Afghanistan that were frayed when it withdrew from the country in 1989 following its decade-long occupation. Experts say Russia wants to take a lead role in the peace process and grow its influence in Afghanistan to counter the U.S. and NATO presence in the region. It has hosted several meetings between Taliban delegations and Afghan representatives in the past year.

China. Beijing's interests in Afghanistan are primarily economic, as it hopes to integrate it into the Belt and Road Initiative, a collection of development and investment projects. China is the country's largest source of foreign investment and it is interested in tapping into Afghanistan's vast natural resources. Additionally, Beijing is concerned that terrorists could use Afghanistan to establish links within China. In late 2019, Afghan and Taliban officials attended a conference in Beijing, and Chinese leaders supported a U.S.-Taliban agreement.

International aid. Dozens of countries continue to provide assistance to Afghanistan, with 75 percent of the government's public expenditures currently covered by grants from international partners, according to a World Bank report. The report warned that Afghanistan will continue to require billions of dollars in aid for years to come. Some experts believe that aid could be used as leverage to keep the Taliban in negotiations with the Afghan government.

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After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement in what were both sides' most intensive efforts yet to end the war. Central to the deal is a significant drawdown of U.S. troops and guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists.

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For most people around the world, hearing the name Afghanistan brings to mind images of war, terrorism, political turmoil, and a near-failed state whose human development index is one of the lowest in the world.

The United States has been at war in the country for over 16 years - the longest in American history. Afghanistan has been embroiled in conflict for almost 40 years, during which the Afghan people have experienced a Communist coup, an invasion by the Soviet Union, and the rise of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Just this week, an ISIS militant detonated a bomb in a Shia cultural center and news agency in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, killing over 40 people. The tragedy evoked just how much violent extremism still hampers the country's progress.

But underneath this brutal and frustrating modern history lies a country with a natural and cultural beauty that has few equals in today's world. With sweeping valleys, snow-capped peaks, and a patchwork of cultures and peoples, Afghanistan is truly one of the most gorgeous places on earth.

Here are 17 stunning photos that showcase the side of Afghanistan you won't see on the news:

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17 photos that prove the country where America has been fighting its longest war is actually one of the most beautiful on earth

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For most people around the world, hearing the name Afghanistan brings to mind images of war, terrorism, political turmoil, and a near-failed state whose human development index is one of the lowest in the world. The United States has been at war in the country for over 16 years - the longest in American history.

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History of the Salem Witch Trials - History of Massachusetts Blog

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The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. Ever since those dark days ended, the trials have become synonymous with mass hysteria and scapegoating. The following are some facts…

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Hitler's government led a strong campaign in support of Hitler's efforts to influence the behavior of Germany society.

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"task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."

Communicating the Nazi Message

Nazi Following the seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.

There were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of the struggle against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935 (before the Nuremberg Race Laws of September) and in 1938 (prior to the barrage of antisemitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht ). Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and "restoring order."

Real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations which had gained territory at Germany's expense following World War I, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, was the subject of Nazi propaganda. This propaganda sought to elicit political loyalty and so-called race consciousness among the ethnic German populations. It also sought to mislead foreign governments-including the European Great Powers-that Nazi Germany was making understandable and fair demands for concessions and annexations.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Nazi propaganda stressed to both civilians at home and to soldiers, police officers, and non-German auxiliaries serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germany as the defender of "Western" culture against the "Judeo-Bolshevik threat," and painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won the war. This was particularly the case after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. These themes may have been instrumental in inducing Nazi and non-Nazi Germans as well as local collaborators to fight on until the very end.

The Role of Film

(1938), depicted the Films in particular played an important role in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed by Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Will (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl , glorified Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Two other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nations and Festival of Beauty and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi regime at the Olympics. 1936 Berlin Olympic Games

The Role of Newspapers

Newspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.

Covering up Atrocities and Mass Murder

During the implementation of the " ," the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at Final Solution killing centers compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible. Concentration camp and killing center officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon die in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Here, the camp authorities used propaganda to cover up atrocities and mass murder.

In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians "to the East" for "labor." In preparation for the 1944 visit, the International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt ghetto underwent a "beautification" program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish "residents" of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

Mobilizing the Population

The Nazi regime used propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi regime. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of others-as bystanders -to racially targeted persecution and mass murder.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Nazi propaganda had a key role in the persecution of Jews. Learn more about how Hitler and the Nazi Party used propaganda to facilitate war and genocide.

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World War II History: WW2 in the Pacific (Japan) for Kids

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Kids learn about the history of World War II in the Pacific. Japan attacks China and Southeast Asia including the US at Pearl Harbor.

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Poland

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This began World War II. The Germans used a new kind of attack. They called it blitzkrieg, or "lightning war." Blitzkrieg relied on fast-moving tanks and warplanes to shock the enemy into surrendering.

After this invasion, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, and South Africa joined Britain on the side of the Allies. But no one could help when the Soviet Union attacked Poland on September 17. Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland between them. The Soviet Union also invaded Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland during 1939.

Scandinavia and the Low Countries

Between April and June 1940 the Germans took over Norway and Denmark. In May they moved into the Low Countries- Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

France

In mid-May 1940 the first German troops crossed into France. By June 14 the Germans had entered Paris, the French capital.

On June 22 France agreed to let Germans rule most of their country. However, many French people continued to fight the Germans. They were called the Free French. They took orders from Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle's headquarters were in Britain.

As France was falling to the Germans, Italy declared war against France and Britain. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war as an Axis power.

Great Britain

Hitler's next target was the island of Great Britain. Starting in June 1940, German warplanes began bombing Britain. However, the British had a new invention called radar. Radar warned the British when German aircraft were nearing. British fighter airplanes shot down many attackers. This battle, called the Battle of Britain, was the world's first major battle fought in the air.

The Germans soon decided not to invade Britain. Instead, they dropped more bombs on London and other cities until May 1941.

The Atlantic Ocean

The British also fought the German navy. Early in the war, the Germans sank many of the supply ships that delivered food and weapons from North America. In 1943 the Allies began to use aircraft carriers to protect convoys, or groups, of supply ships. The number of supply ships reaching Britain then increased.

North Africa

In the autumn of 1940 the Italians invaded Egypt. They wanted to control the Suez Canal, which linked the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. However, the British drove the Italians back.

Then the German general Erwin Rommel led the Germans to victories in North Africa. In 1942 British forces finally stopped Rommel in two battles at El-Alamein, Egypt. By November 6 the British had driven the Germans from Egypt.

The Soviet Union

After conquering the countries on Germany's borders, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. The attack began on June 22, 1941. The Soviet Union joined the Allies soon afterward. The Soviets stopped the Germans on the edges of Moscow (the Soviet capital) and Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg).

In 1942 Hitler decided to take the Soviet city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd). The fight at Stalingrad was the largest single battle in World War II. About 1.9 million soldiers died on both sides. The Germans surrendered in January 1943. After Stalingrad, the Soviets gradually drove out the Germans.

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World War II started in 1939. By the time it ended in 1945, the war involved nearly every part of the world. The two sides that fought the war were called the Axis powers and...

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World War II in the Pacific in 1942 (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph

During World War II the kamikaze were Japanese suicide pilots who deliberately crashed their planes into enemy targets, usually ships. The term means "divine wind" in Japanese," a reference to a typhoon that destroyed the Mongol fleet sent to conquer Japan in 1281. Most kamikaze planes were ordinary fighters or light bombers, usually loaded with bombs and extra gasoline tanks before being crashed into their targets.

Kamikaze attacks were most common from the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in October 1944, to Japan's surrender in August 1945. The attacks sank 34 ships and damaged hundreds of others. In the Battle of Okinawa, fought between April and June 1945, they inflicted the greatest losses ever suffered by the U.S. Navy in a single battle, killing almost 5,000 men.

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During World War II the kamikaze were Japanese suicide pilots who deliberately crashed their planes into enemy targets, usually ships. The term means "divine wind" in Japanese," a reference to a typhoon that destroyed the Mongol fleet sent to conquer Japan in 1281.

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During World War Two, thousands of Japanese pilots volunteered to be kamikaze, suicidally crashing their planes in the name of their emperor. More than 70 years on, the BBC's Mariko Oi asks what these once revered men mean to Japan's youth.

Irrational, heroic and stupid: this was what three young people in Tokyo said when I asked them about their views on the kamikaze.

"Heroic?" queried Takumi, of his younger brother Shunpei's choice of word. "I didn't realise you were so right wing?"

It is difficult to verify the figures but it is believed that 3-4,000 Japanese pilots crashed their planes into an enemy target on purpose.

Only 10% of missions were believed to be successful but they sank some 50 Allied vessels.

Decades after the war, opinions on the kamikaze pilots remain divided, partly because their legacy has been used repeatedly as a political tool.

"During the seven years of the Allied occupation of Japan, the kamikaze reputation was one of the first things that they went after," Prof MG Sheftall from Shizuoka University explained.

The suicidal tactic was portrayed as "insanity".

"But when the Allies left in 1952, the right wing nationalists came out strongly and they have carried out multi-generational efforts to seize back control of the narrative," he says.

"Even in the 1970s and 80s, the vast majority of Japanese people thought of the kamikaze as something shameful, a crime committed by the state against their family members.

"But in the 1990s, the nationalists started testing the water, seeing whether they could get away with calling the kamikaze pilots heroes. When they didn't get much push back, they got bolder and bolder," he added.

Would you fight for your country?

A survey of several countries in 2015 by Win/Gallup found that 11% of Japanese people would be prepared to fight for their country.

In the 2000s, films such as For Those We Love and The Eternal Zero were released, portraying the kamikaze as just that - heroes.

But even Shunpei, the teenager who said they were heroic, admitted that his views had been affected by films and said that if Japan went to war tomorrow, he wouldn't be prepared to die for his country.

"It's because I cannot do it, " he said. "I find them heroic and courageous."

In fact, only 11% of Japanese nationals would be willing to fight for the country at all, according to a global survey by WIN/Gallup International. That places Japan at the bottom of the list.

The result is hardly surprising given that Japan's post-war generation was brought up under a pacifist constitution which banned the nation from having a military.

'I didn't want to die'

But is it true that all kamikaze pilots, who were mostly aged between 17 and 24, were wholly willing to die for their country?

When I spoke to two rare survivors, now in their 90s, the answer appeared to be no.

"I would say 60-70% of us were eager to sacrifice ourselves for the emperor, but the rest probably questioned why they had to go," 94-year-old Osamu Yamada told me at his home in Nagoya. Before he carried out his mission, the war ended.

"I was single at that time and had nothing holding me back so I had one genuine thought in mind and that is I must give myself up to defend Japan. But for those who had families, they must have thought very differently."

Keiichi Kuwahara, 91, was one of those who couldn't stop thinking about his family. He told me about the moment he was told to be part of the kamikaze unit.

"I felt myself going pale." He was only 17. "I was scared. I didn't want to die."

"I lost my father the year before, so it was only my mother and my older sister working to support the family. I was sending money to them from my salary. I thought, what will happen if I die? How will my family eat?"

So when his engines malfunctioned and he was forced to come back, he was relieved.

But on paper, Mr Kuwahara was considered to have volunteered. "Was I forced or did I volunteer? It is a difficult question to answer if you don't understand the essence of the military," he said.

Prof Sheftall says the pilots were asked to put their hand up in a big group if they didn't want to volunteer. Amid peer pressure, hardly anyone was able to say no to the mission.

The kamikaze are often compared in modern time to terrorists who carry out suicide missions, but Mr Kuwahara said that's not accurate.

"I think the two are completely different," said Mr Kuwahara. "Kamikaze actions were taken only because it was wartime. With the so-called Islamic State the attacks are unpredictable."

Mr Yamada thinks the word kamikaze, which means "divine wind" in Japanese, is misunderstood and used inappropriately in English without understanding the historical context of what Japan was facing at the time.

"It hurts me because kamikaze was my youth. It was an innocent thing. It really was something pure. It was much more sublime. But now it is being discussed as if we were induced," he said.

After the war Mr Kuwahara, who had been reluctant about his mission, said he felt liberated and that he needed to think about how to rebuild the country.

But Mr Yamada took a while to adjust.

"I was disoriented, I felt powerless, I lost my sense of self, as if my soul was pulled out of me," he recalled.

"As kamikaze pilots, we were all prepared to die, so when I heard that we were defeated, I felt like the bottom had fallen out of my world."

It was the necessity to work, get food and survive in post-war Japan that kept him going.

And the very man he had been willing to die for, Emperor Hirohito, ultimately played a role in him moving on from the war because he set an example by shaking hands with the Americans.

"The emperor, his majesty, was the heart of Japan. I think the presence of Emperor Hirohito helped the Japanese to recover from the war," he said.

For Japan's post-war generation, the experiences of former kamikaze pilots are unimaginable, even to their own family members.

"But when I think about his life, I notice that my life isn't mine alone," Mr Yamada's granddaughter Yoshiko Hasegawa told me. "I am obliged to live for those who could have been born as the children and grandchildren of the soldiers who died during the war."

Mr Kuwahara's grandson, meanwhile, is unaware of exactly what he went through as a 17-year-old trainee pilot.

"But that's the peaceful Japan I wanted to create," he said, smiling. To him, his grandson's ignorance is proof that the country has moved on from its painful past.
You can hear Mariko's documentary "The Last Kamikazes" on the BBC World Service on Tuesday 7 November. You can listen again via the World Service website or World Service Documentaries download.

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How Japan's youth see the kamikaze pilots of WW2

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During World War Two, thousands of Japanese pilots volunteered to be kamikaze, suicidally crashing their planes in the name of their emperor. More than 70 years on, the BBC's Mariko Oi asks what these once revered men mean to Japan's youth.

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The two old men apparently declared they were soldiers, and the story they told when they emerged from the dense jungle of a Philippine island was yesterday the talk of the nation they claimed to have fought for.

According to reports, the Japanese men, who are both in their 80s, said they had been hiding on the island of Mindanao, which is 600 miles from Manila, since before the end of the second world war.

The Kyodo news agency identified them as Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85, and said they were former members of a division whose ranks were devastated in fierce battles with US forces towards the end of the war.

The soldiers had remained in the jungle and mountains since then, possibly unaware that the war had ended 60 years ago, and afraid that they would be court-martialled for desertion if they showed their faces again.

The revelation provoked an immediate response in Tokyo, with the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, dispatching a team of diplomats to try to verify the stories.

Mr Koizumi told reporters that if the two were found to be Japanese soldiers, everything would be done to repatriate them if that was what they wanted.

"If they are alive, we'd like to fulfill their wishes," he said. "If this turns out to be true it will be quite a surprise. They have done really well to stay alive this long."

If yesterday's reports are true, it would be the first time a Japanese soldier has been found alive for more than 30 years.

In 1974, Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese army intelligence officer, caused a sensation when he was persuaded to come out of hiding by a former comrade on the Philippine island of Lubang.

Mr Onoda, now 83, wept uncontrollably as he agreed to lay down his rifle, unaware that Japanese forces had surrendered 29 years earlier. He returned to Japan the same year, but unable to adapt to life in his home country, emigrated to Brazil in 1975.

In 1972, Shoichi Yokoi was found on the island of Guam and returned to Japan, where he died in 1997. Like Mr Onoda, he had no idea that the war had ended.

The drama began on Thursday when a Japanese mediator for a veteran's group who was on Mindanao searching for the remains of former soldiers told the Japanese embassy in Manila that he had been contacted by the men and would be able to deliver them to the island's capital, General Santos, yesterday afternoon.

But hopes of confirming their identities were dashed when they men failed to materialise, possibly scared off by the media attention.

"There has been nothing concrete at all today; nothing has happened," an embassy spokesman, Shuhei Ogawa, told the Guardian from the hotel where the Japanese delegation was waiting. With expectation mounting at home, Japanese officials on the ground said they were not ready to give up. The embassy delegation plans to stay at least until today.

"We don't know beyond that," Mr Ogawa said. "It depends on what happens. We believe someone from the social welfare ministry is due to leave Japan tomorrow but we don't know when they will get to General Santos City."

A close associate of a veterans' organisation in Japan that knows the mediator told the Guardian he was confident that the men exist.

"I understand that they produced some form of identification and wrote their names in Japanese," said Kazuhiko Terashima, whose father, Yoshihiko, is president of a group that searches for the remains of Japanese soldiers. "Then they said they wanted to return to Japan, so the mediator contacted the Japanese embassy."

Mr Terashima said he believed the men, who were dressed in civilian clothes, had fled back into the mountains because they were unsettled by the presence of so many Japanese reporters in the area.

Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, hours after the attack on the US at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. It conducted a brutal occupation that killed an estimated one million Filipinos.

But the historical background barely merited a mention in media coverage in Japan, where speculation mounted that the octogenarians, if found to be genuine, would return home more than 60 years after they left as young men to fight for the emperor.

"If they come, we will ask them if they can speak Japanese and if they want to return to Japan," said Shinichi Ogawa, the Japanese consul for Davao, the main city on Mindanao.

Negotiators and former soldiers regularly travel to the Philippines to investigate reports of Japanese military stragglers living in mountain jungles, apparently unaware that the war had ended.

An estimated three million Japanese troops were stationed overseas when the wartime emperor, Hirohito, surrendered in August 1945. Unaware of their country's capitulation, some went into hiding, holding on to their weapons and ammunition for years and evading patrols of allied troops.

"We always have rumours about war veterans turning up alive in remote parts of the Philippines," Mr Ogawa said. "But this time the story seemed more credible. We had someone who promised us concrete information, a meeting on a certain day. So we took it more seriously."

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60 years after the war ends, two soldiers emerge from the jungle

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The two old men apparently declared they were soldiers, and the story they told when they emerged from the dense jungle of a Philippine island was yesterday the talk of the nation they claimed to have fought for.

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Kids learn about the history of the Atomic Bomb during World War II. Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan to end WW2.

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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Facts for Kids

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Learn Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki facts for kids

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How did Hitler rise to power? - Alex Gendler and Anthony Hazard

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From Academic Kids

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The Khmer Rouge ( Khmer: Missing image
KhRouge.png

, pronounced Khmaey Krahom or ; French: Khmer Rouge in the masculine singular, Khmers Rouges in the plural) was a Communist organization which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The term Khmer Rouge, which means "Red Khmer" in French, was coined by the francophone king and later prime minister of Cambodia Norodom Sihanouk, and adopted in English. The official name of the Khmer Rouge was the Communist Party of Cambodia, later the Party of Democratic Kampuchea. It was also known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the Khmer Communist Party and the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea.

The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, starvation and forced labor. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled, it was one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century, and is often compared with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Nevertheless, only three of the Khmer Rouge leaders have been imprisoned since their rule ended, one on unrelated charges.

Establishment

The Indochinese Communist Party was founded in 1931, and a separate Cambodian Communist Party was founded in 1951, although later the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, insisted that the party was founded in 1960. In its early years the party remained subordinate to the Communist Party of Vietnam. From the mid 1960s the Cambodian Communists conducted a low-level insurgency along the Vietnamese border, mainly in support of the Vietnamese Communists in their war with the United States.

In the 1970s the Party became known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and in the 1980s and 1990s as the Party of Democratic Kampuchea, but it became commonly known by the French name Khmer Rouge, a name originally given by Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s.

The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee ("Party Center") during its period of power consisted of:

Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) "Brother number 1" the effective leader of the movement, General secretary since February 1963 (dead, March 15, 1998)

Nuon Chea "Brother number 2" Prime Minister (alive)

Ieng Sary "Brother number 3" Deputy Prime Minister (Pol Pot's brother-in-law) (alive)

Khieu Samphan President of the Khmer Rouge (alive)

Ta Mok (Chhit Chhoeun) "Brother number 7" Final Khmer Rouge leader, Southwest Regional Secretary (alive)

Son Sen Defense Minister (dead), also;

Yun Yat (dead), Ke Pauk "Brother number 13" Former secretary of the Nothern zone (dead) and Ieng Thirith (alive).

The leadership of the Khmer Rouge was largely unchanged between the 1960s and the mid- 1990s. The Khmer Rouge leaders were mostly from middle-class families and had been educated at French universities. The great majority of Khmer Rouge fighters were from poor peasant families and many were conscripted. The Khmer Rouge was funded by Vietnam in the 1950s, supplied with small arms, explosives, military weapons and support from China in the 1980s and had approximately 8,000 guerillas.

Political ideology

The ideology of the Khmer Rouge combined an extreme, somewhat revised form of Maoism with the anti-colonialist ideas of the European Left, which its leaders had acquired during their education in French universities in the 1950s. To this was added resentment against the Cambodian Communists' long subordination to the Vietnamese.

In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "new people" (Khmer: monou thmey) through agricultural labour. It resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, and starvation.

The Khmer Rouge's defenders have justified such actions by claiming that the country was on the verge of mass starvation as a result of U.S. bombing campaigns (killing an estimated 600,000), and that it was impossible to transport sufficient food to feed an urban population of between 2 and 3 million people. This required evacuating the cities to the countryside so that people could become self-sufficient. In fact the motive for the policy was primarily ideological. Furthermore, given that we do not know if the country was in such dire straits - but we do know that the Khmer Rouge's "solution" was an unmitigated human disaster - such revisionism is somewhat hollow.

Rise of the Khmer Rouge

In 1970 Cambodia's neutralist ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was deposed while out of the country by a coup d'état, widely believed to have been organized by the United States, which brought General Lon Nol to power. Sihanouk formed a government in exile, the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea (GRUNK) which was run by the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK), and whose armed forces were the Cambodian People's National Liberation Armed Forces. These bodies included some neutralist and other non-Communist politicians, but they were generally seen to be fronts for the Khmer Rouge, and when they came to power it was the Communists of the Khmer Rouge who controlled the regime.

With American financial support, Lon Nol attempted to fight the Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge. American bombing in Cambodia and the subsequent Cambodian casualties made Lon Nol's government unpopular, and caused support for the Khmer Rouge to grow, particularly in the countryside. Support for Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing, was strong in rural areas, and he urged resistance against Lon Nol's regime.

By 1973 the Khmer Rouge exercised de facto control over the majority of Cambodian territory, although only a minority of its population. On April 17 1975 they captured Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Rouge soldiers told residents that they would be moved only about "two or three kilometers" outside the city and would return in "two or three days." Some witnesses say they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything" until they returned.

The Khmer Rouge in power

The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population into agricultural communes. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps. During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups (including intellectuals) and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.

Cambodians were expected to produce three tons of rice per hectare; before the Khmer Rouge era the average was one ton per hectare. The Khmer Rouge forced people to work for 12 hours non-stop, without adequate rest or food. They did not believe in western medicine but instead favoured traditional peasant medicine; many died as a result. Family relationships were also banned, and family members could be put to death for communicating with each other.

The Khmer language has a complex system of usages to define speakers' rank and social status. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge, these usages were abandoned. People were however, encouraged to call each other "friend," or "comrade" (Khmer: "miet"), and to avoid traditional signs of deference such as bowing or folding the hands in salutation. Language was transformed in other ways. The Khmer Rouge invented new terms. People were told they must "forge" (Khmer: "lot dam") a new revolutionary character, that they were the "instruments" (Khmer: "opokar") of the Angkar (Organization, not to be confused with Angkor), and that nostalgia for prerevolutionary times (Khmer: "choeu stek arom", or "memory sickness") could result in their receiving Angkar's "invitation."

Killings and torture

The Khmer Rouge regime arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, professionals, intellectuals as well as ordinary Khmer people who breached their rules. Ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monkhood were also targets of persecution. Since China was the Khmer Rouge regime's only diplomatic ally, the Chinese community was not molested, but many Chinese left the country because of the suppression of private business.

Examples of the killings and torture by the Khmer Rouge can be seen at S-21 (now Tuol Sleng Museum), operated by "Duch" ( Khang Khek Leu), a high school turned prison camp. Some 200,000 people passed through this centre before taken to sites outside Phnom Penh such as Choeung Ek, where most were executed and buried in mass graves.

The exact number of people who died as a result of the Khmer Rouge's policies is debated. The Vietnamese-installed regime that succeeded the Khmer Rouge claimed that 3.3 million had died. The CIA estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge, but executions represented only a minority of the death toll, which mostly came from starvation.

The United States Department of State and the State Department funded Yale Cambodian Genocide Project give estimates of the total death toll as 1.2 million and 1.7 million respectively. Amnesty International gives estimates of the total death toll as 1.4 million. R. J. Rummel, an analyst of historical political killings, gives a figure of 2 million. Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot gave a figure of 800,000. An Italian Catholic magazine claimed to have had an interview with Khieu Samphan where he said 1 million had died, although that he ever made the statement is disputed.

In 1962, the last census before Cambodia was engulfed by war, the population of the country was 5.7 million. A decade later, in 1972, the population was estimated at 7.1 million. Using Amnesty International's figure of 1.4 million deaths, about 20 percent of the population would have died between 1975 and 1978.

Fall of the Khmer Rouge

In December 1978, after several years of border conflict and a flood of refugees into Vietnam, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979 and deposing the Khmer Rouge regime. Despite Cambodians' traditional fear of Vietnamese domination, the Vietnamese invaders were assisted by widespread defections of Khmer Rouge activists, who formed the core of the post-Khmer Rouge government. The Khmer Rouge retreated to the west and continued to control an area near the Thai border for the next decade, unofficially protected by elements of the Thai Army and funded by smuggled diamonds and timber. In 1985 Khieu Samphan officially succeeded Pol Pot as head of the Khmer Rouge.

The U.S. and other western governments, along with China, continued to recognise "Democratic Kampuchea" as the legitimate government of Cambodia, in order to signal their disapproval of the Vietnamese occupation of the country, which was backed by the Soviet Union. China launched a punitive invasion of northern Vietnam. The U.S. channelled some support to the Khmer Rouge resistance in western Cambodia via surrogates in Thailand, while the Thai military provided them with intelligence. While eastern and central Cambodia were firmly under the control of Vietnam and its Cambodian allies by 1980, the western part of the country continued to be a battlefield through the 1980s, with millions of landmines sown across the countryside.

After a decade of inconclusive conflict, all Cambodian political factions signed a treaty in 1991 calling for elections and disarmament. But in 1992 the Khmer Rouge resumed fighting and the following year they rejected the results of the elections. There was a mass defection in 1996 when around half the remaining soldiers (about 4,000) left. Factional fighting in 1997 led to Pol Pot's trial and imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge itself. Pol Pot died in April 1998, and Khieu Samphan surrendered in December. On December 29, 1998 the remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologised for the deaths in the 1970s. By 1999 most members had surrendered, or been captured. In December 1999 Ta Mok and the remaining leaders surrendered and the Khmer Rouge effectively ceased to exist.

Before the Khmer Rouge came to power some Cambodians had already fled to refugee camps. But those who were not able to flee had to work in rural farms until the Vietnamese had liberated them and later escaped to the camps. Many Cambodians had crossed the border into Thailand to seek asylum. From there they were transported to refugee camps such as Khao-I-Dang, the only camp allowing resettlement in countries such as the United States, France, Canada, and Australia.

Recovery and trials

Since 1990 Cambodia has gradually recovered, demographically and economically, from the Khmer Rouge regime, although the psychological scars affect many Cambodian families and emigre communities. Although the current government teaches about Khmer Rouge atrocities in the schools, Cambodia has a very young population and by 2005 three-quarters of Cambodians were too young (less than 20 years old) to remember the Khmer Rouge years. The younger generations would only know the Khmer Rouge through word-of-mouth from parents and elders.

When the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge, Duch attempted to destroy the documents at Tuol Sleng. However, he left over 100,000 pages of documentation of Tuol Sleng. Another 100,000 pages of documents were left behind at Son Sen's (presumed) residence. Most of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders live in the Pailin area or are hidden in Phnom Penh.

In ( 1997, Cambodia established a Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force http://www.cambodia.gov.kh/krt/english/) consisting of 300 people, to create a legal and judicial structure to try the remaining leaders for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. However, a shortage of funds has halted the operation. As of March 2005, international funding through the Group of Interested States and United Nations logistical support have been promised to support any trials. With US $43 million required for a trial, Japan is the largest donor at $21.6 million. The United States has yet to provide financial support due to complications with the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act of 2005, which disallowed funding a Cambodian tribunal. The tribunal will be held at military barracks near Phnom Penh due to security concerns.

Critics, however, continue to doubt that any of the Khmer Rouge leaders will be brought to justice. Some observers attributed the slow progress to the presence of former Khmer Rouge members in the current government, and fears of renewed violence by Khmer Rouge supporters.

References

Further reading

Two of the very few western scholars who know the Khmer language and have published works about Cambodia are Ben Kiernan and David P. Chandler.

David P. Chandler: A History of Cambodia (Westview Press 2000); ISBN 0813335116.

David P. Chandler: Brother Number One: A Political Biography (Westview Press 1999); ISBN 813335108.

David P. Chandler: Facing the Cambodian past: Selected essays, 1971-1994 (Silkworm Books 1996); ISBN 9747047748.

David P. Chandler, Ben Kiernan etc.: Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays (Yale University Press 1983); ISBN 0938692054.

Ben Kiernan: The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79; ISBN 0300096496.

Ben Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975 (Yale University Press, Second Edition 2004); ISBN 0300102623.

See also

External links

es:Jemeres Rojos fr:Khmers rouges id:Khmer Merah he:חמר רוז'nl:Rode Khmer ja:クメール・ルージュpl:Czerwoni Khmerzy fi:Punaiset khmerit sv:Röda khmererna zh:柬埔寨共產黨

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Template:Message box The Khmer Rouge ( Khmer: Missing image KhRouge.png , pronounced Khmaey Krahom or ; French: Khmer Rouge in the masculine singular, Khmers Rouges in the plural) was a Communist organization which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

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Khmer Rouge

Active

1951-1999

Ideology

Autarky
Communism (until 1981)
Khmer nationalism

Political position
Far-left

Leader
Pol Pot

Headquarters
Phnom Penh

The Khmer Rouge was the name popularly given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name had originally been used in the 1950s by Norodom Sihanouk.

The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in the jungles of Eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong and the Pathet Lao. Despite a massive American bombing campaign against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when in 1975 they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the government of the Khmer Republic.

Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan renamed the country as Democratic Kampuchea and immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. The regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents. Ultimately, the Cambodian genocide led to the deaths of 1.5 to 3 million people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.

The Khmer Rouge regime was highly repressive. The genocide was in part the result of the regime's social engineering policies. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria.

The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam entered Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of the Khmer Rouge's forces.

The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand. The US and China and their allies, notably the Thatcher government, backed Pol Pot in exile in Thailand, providing the Khmers with intelligence, food, weapons and military training. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight the Vietnamese and the new People's Republic of Kampuchea government during the Cambodian-Vietnamese War which ended in 1989.

The organisation was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999. In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court, which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.

Images for kids

An aerial view of bomb craters in Cambodia

Khmer Rouge's activities in 1989-1990

Kang Kek Iew before the Cambodian Genocide Tribunal on 20 July 2009

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Khmer Rouge Active 1951-1999 Ideology Autarky Communism (until 1981) Khmer nationalism Political position Far-left Leader Pol Pot Headquarters Phnom Penh The Khmer Rouge was the name popularly given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

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The radical communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after having won power through a guerrilla war. During its brutal rule, the Khmer Rouge government caused the deaths of more than a million people from forced labor, starvation, disease, torture, and execution.

In 1951 the Revolutionary Cambodian People's party was formed in Vietnam. The leader of the notorious group was Pol Pot, who had studied in France in the 1950s. He became a communist there and studied with many of the men with whom he later led the party (the name of which was eventually changed to the Communist Party of Kampuchea and, later, the Democratic Party of Kampuchea). Cambodia's government during this time was led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who coined the name Khmer Rouge as a pejorative phrase meaning "red Khmer." (The Khmer people make up the majority of the population in Cambodia.)

The Khmer Rouge assaulted Sihanouk's government beginning deep in Cambodia's jungle. When Vietnamese forces took over Sihanouk's government in 1970, Sihanouk joined forces with the Khmer Rouge. Together they tried to gain support in the countryside against the Vietnamese.

A bitter civil war continued from 1970 to 1975. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge overran Phnom Penh and established their own government to rule the country. A new constitution legalized the communist government and renamed the country Kampuchea. Sihanouk was under house arrest and left for exile in China. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge more than a million people were killed, and the professional and elite members of society were almost completely eliminated. The jungle, where an idyllic agrarian society was to be formed, came to be called "the killing fields." When they were overthrown by Vietnamese troops in 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreated to the countryside and, aided by China, continued to wage guerrilla warfare near the Thai border.

The new government installed by Vietnam began in 1979 to recapture parts of the country from Khmer Rouge control. It was a difficult process, as the Khmer Rouge was still active. In 1982 the Khmer Rouge joined in coalition with two other Khmer groups that were not communist but opposed the Vietnamese-backed central government. By the late 1980s the Vietnamese were preparing to withdraw from the country, and in 1989 Kampuchea's name was changed back to Cambodia. In the early 1990s there were four groups vying for control of Cambodia. They all agreed to a cease-fire, and the United Nations stepped in to supervise elections in 1993. The Khmer Rouge boycotted the elections, which were won by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the son of Norodom Sihanouk, who was reestablished as king by the 1993 constitution. Hun Sen, leader of the Cambodian People's party, fought for and won the opportunity to share power with Ranariddh. Both men were accused of trying to bring former Khmer guerrillas into their parties.

Pol Pot resurfaced in 1997 after nearly 20 years in hiding. Two Khmer Rouge leaders claimed to have captured the ailing Pol Pot and brought him to trial in July in a jungle clearing in western Cambodia. It was evident that the Khmer Rouge factions had become splintered. The trial was judged by most observers to be simply a show trial staged by the struggling Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge leaders who were said to have captured Pol Pot-Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan-were not at the trial, but several other Khmer Rouge generals were accused along with Pol Pot. Pol Pot was sentenced to life imprisonment; the punishment received by the generals was not reported to the public. Foreign leaders still sought to prosecute Pol Pot, saying that the trial in Cambodia did not meet international legal standards.

Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and soon afterward the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge defected or were imprisoned. After years of wrangling and delay, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (commonly called the Khmer Rouge Tribunal) was established in 2006 as a joint operation between the United Nations and the government of Cambodia in order to try former Khmer Rouge leaders. Its first indictments were handed down in 2007. The first trial-against Kaing Guek Eav (better known as Duch), the former commander of a notorious Khmer Rouge prison-got under way in 2009. In 2010 Duch was convicted of war crimes and of crimes against humanity and was sentenced to prison.

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The radical communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after having won power through a guerrilla war. During its brutal rule, the Khmer Rouge government caused the deaths of more than a million people from forced labor, starvation, disease, torture, and execution.

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In August 1945 atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hastening the end of the Second World War and heralding the birth of the atomic age. International attempts to control the development of nuclear technology quickly stalled, leading to a race between the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France to develop their own nuclear weapons.

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Operation Crossroads conducts Baker atomic bomb test (1946)

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Daily Princetonian, Volume 70, Number 30, 13 March 1946 — Physics Department Will Send Five Men To Bikini Bomb Test [ARTICLE] In 1946, the Princeton University Physics Department sent five representatives to the nuclear bombing tests, code named Operation Crossroads, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall…

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The United States emerged from the crucible of World War II as an industrial superpower with a weapon that could revolutionize warfare-an atomic bomb. Demobilizing more than 10 million service personnel, returning to a peacetime economy, and creating world order were enormous, immediate challenges in late 1945. At the same time, the secret of the atomic bomb was out, and the clock was ticking on the United States' nuclear monopoly. The pressure to move quickly seemed to grow with each passing month.

Military leaders and planners struggled to understand what the bomb meant and how it was to be used, if at all. Nuclear strategy had not yet been invented and the radioactive consequences of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were poorly understood. The US military, which had won a decisive victory, was determined to cement its superiority. The day after Emperor Hirohito surrendered, a US military advisor proposed to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal a test of nuclear weapons on naval vessels to demonstrate their survivability. (The advisor, Lewis Strauss, would become the first chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission when it was created the following year). The concept was thus born for "the most observed, most photographed, most-talked-of scientific test ever conducted"-laid out in the official report on Operation Crossroads.

By the numbers

US Personnel: 42,000
Bikini islanders displaced: 167
Ships assembled: 242
Ships sunk immediately: 5 on July 1; 9 on July 25
Airplanes: 156
Cameras: 750
Pressure gages: 5,000
Radiation detectors: 25,000
Goats: 204
Pigs: 200
Mice: 200
Guinea pigs: 60
Rats: 5000
Coffee: 4,000 lbs
Sugar: 11,000 lbs
Fruit: 38,000 lbs
Meat: 40,000 lbs
Vegetables: 89,000 lbs
Candy bars: 70,000

Unlike the Trinity test, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or many other nuclear tests, Operation Crossroads was no secret. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who formally requested the operation, decided even before creating Joint Task Force One or designating Vice Admiral WPH Blandy as its commander in January 1946, that the test would be publicized and attended not just by American press, but also international press. Shaping public expectations created a dynamic all its own. More than a hundred US and foreign reporters attended the tests. Foreign officials, somewhat of an afterthought, attended from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Egypt, United Kingdom, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, and Soviet Union as observers also.

Destroying a significant number of naval ships with a single nuclear weapon takes planning and time. Yet the first test was planned for May 15 because scientists involved in the war effort were eager to get back to civilian work, civilian scientists would want to be back at their universities by September, military personnel were being demobilized, and military budgets were expected to decline precipitously. Holding onto a surplus of target vessels also could not continue indefinitely. President Truman slipped the deadline six weeks to allow members of Congress to attend. In the end, just four Senators and nine congressmen attended Able; one senator and five congressmen attended Baker.

Congress watched the progress of Operational Crossroads closely. Within two weeks of his appointment, Vice Admiral Blandy sat in front of a Senate committee, explaining in the Cultural Resource Assessment that "The ultimate result of the tests, so far as the Navy is concerned, will be their translation into terms of United States sea power. Secondary purposes are to afford training for Army Air Forces personnel in the attack with the atomic bomb against ships and to determine the effect of the atomic bomb upon military installations and equipment." In short, the Navy and Army needed to prepare to fight (and survive) a nuclear war. Congress did not fully authorize the tests until June 14, little more than two weeks from the countdown. In the meanwhile, questioning was intense.

Lurking underneath the rational military planning were bureaucratic fears. Admiral Blandy was proud of choosing the name for the operation himself and underlined its importance with this description:

Airpower and seapower both were integral to winning in the Pacific theater of war, but the advent of aircraft-delivered nuclear bombs made observers wonder whether naval vessels were now obsolete. The Navy set out to prove the opposite and in the process, invented a role for itself in delivering nuclear ordinance.

Three tests were envisioned for Operation Crossroads: a Hiroshima-like burst (Able shot), a shallow underwater burst (Baker), and a deeply submerged explosion (1000-2000 feet below the surface). The Baker shot produced so much contamination that President Truman cancelled the third test.

Objections to Operation Crossroads

The public nature of the tests exposed them to more scrutiny, both inside and outside the government. Some critics objected to the cost of the tests, including the sinking or scuttling of scores of US ships, even if they were deemed to be a surplus after the war. The ships designated as targets for the tests would have constituted the 6th largest navy at the time and, ironically, the Navy repaired a few before their imminent demise to make the test more realistic.

Other critics wondered if the tests were too provocative to foreign competitors and US officials made a point of explaining that the target array did not mirror any real-world navy. US nuclear scientists questioned the scientific value of the tests, and the possibility for severe radioactive contamination from an underwater explosion. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists conjectured in an official memo from Henry Newson that water around a recent surface explosion would be "a witch's brew... [and] There will probably be enough plutonium near the surface to poison the combined armed forces of the United States at their highest wartime strength."

To make matters worse, the Army Air Force wanted the test to demonstrate the vulnerability of Navy ships while the Navy wanted to demonstrate the robustness of its ships. Ultimately, the lessons drawn from the tests had nothing to do with the survivability of the US fleet. Instead, the classified Final Report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that "If used in numbers, atomic bombs not only can nullify any nation's military effort, but can demolish its social and economic structures and prevent their reestablishment for long periods of time.

With such weapons, especially if employed in conjunction with other weapons of mass destructions, for example, pathogenic bacteria, it is quite possible to depopulate vast areas of the earth's surface, leaving only vestigial remnants of man's material works....Dominance in the ability to wage atomic warfare, the loss of which might be fatal to our national life, can be retained only by unflagging effort to hold that leadership." The seeds of the nuclear arms race, preemptive strikes, and mutually assured destruction are all found in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Evaluation Board report.

Small objections were raised by congressmen during hearings regarding whether enough was being done for the 167 inhabitants of the Bikini atoll who were asked to relocate. The military had moved the islanders to Rongerik atoll on March 7, building houses for them. No one could have predicted that these so-called "nuclear nomads" would never return for good.

Conflicting Impulses

US nuclear history is rife with contradictions and tensions, particularly between a desire for peace and honing nuclear war capabilities. On the day of the Nagasaki bombing, President Truman had announced that the United States would seek the means "to control the bomb so as to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction." Within three months, Truman met with UK Prime Minister Atlee and Canadian Prime Minister King and together proposed a UN atomic energy commission that would control atomic energy to ensure peaceful uses through the establishment of safeguards and inspections and through the elimination of nuclear weapons. The first resolution passed by the brand new United Nations General Assembly in January 1946 created the UN Atomic Energy Commission.

It was to this international commission that Bernard Baruch proposed, on June 14, 1946, a practical way of implementing disarmament, drawing upon the Acheson-Lilienthal report. That same day in Washington, senators formally authorized Operation Crossroads. In the words of one journalist, Gram Swing, ABC radio commentator: "At Bikini, the Navy is preparing itself for the failure of the UN Atomic Energy Commission. On the one hand, we're striving to rid the world of a weapon which may set back civilization for centuries...and on the other hand, we're training ourselves in the use of this very weapon. So we strive to save civilization, and we learn how to wreck it, all on the same weekend."

Civilians were not only focused on promoting international control of weapons, but civilian control of nuclear weapons at home. Since 1944, officials recognized the need for a post-war civilian commission but initial variations had heavy military representation. By mid-1946, Senator Brien McMahon's legislation prevailed and President Truman signed the US Atomic Energy Act into law on August 1. None of this prevented the nuclear bureaucracy from gearing up to incorporate nuclear weapons into the evolving US military structure. At the end of the war, the US arsenal of atomic devices was empty. But, the vast industrial machinery that produced the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was still in place. Within a year, the stockpile grew to nine weapons, and with them, plans for military tests.

The Able (July 1, 1946) and Baker (July 25, 1946) Shots

According to government documents, both implosion, plutonium-based devices used in the Able and Baker tests were identical in yield but vastly different in results. The Able device was air-dropped by a B-29 that missed its target by a half-mile on the morning of July 1, 1946. The device detonated about 158 meters above the Nevada and hit several ships carrying instrumentation so that significant data was lost. The same mistake in the dry-run-the signal to turn on recording equipment was 10 seconds late-was repeated in the actual bomb-drop, resulting in the failure of dozens of cameras, spectrographs, and shock-wave instruments to record anything at all. Still, the airburst weapon, nicknamed "Gilda" after a Rita Hayworth movie released that year, caused considerable, but not spectacular damage to the ships. Most importantly, the airburst avoided seriously contaminating the ships, allowing observation the very next day. About a third of the US journalists present at the Able shot decided not to stay for Baker.

The Baker underwater shot was a different story. The bomb, dubbed "Helen of Bikini," was detonated on the morning of July 25, 1946. According to the government's Historical Radiological Assessment, "The first effect of the blast was a tremendous bubble of water and steam that broke the ocean's surface. Then a huge wave, over 90 feet high, later called a base surge, rolled over target and support vessels as well as the islands of the atoll. Vast quantities of radioactive debris, primarily consisting of fission products (radioactive elements resulting from the fission, or splitting, of the bomb's plutonium), unconsumed plutonium from the bomb's fissioning core, and radioactive sand and coral that had been irradiated by the intense neutron radiation from the blast rained down on the target and support ships, islands, and lagoon. This unexpected outcome caused contamination of both target and support ships, the extent of which depended on each ship's position relative to the zero point of the blast. Twelve of the ships in the immediate area of the detonation sank immediately or within hours."

No one had experience with decontaminating radioactive ships. Some ships were too radioactive to be boarded at all in the first week and thereafter, for little more than a few minutes. The support fleet itself became radioactively contaminated, as stated in the Nuclear Test Personnel Review, from marine life in the lagoon. By August 10, the decision was made to tow ships to Kwajalein atoll for decontamination and to sink or scuttle others. Eventually, eight major ships and two submarines were towed back to Hawaii and the West coast of the United States for inspection and decontamination. Animals retrieved from the ships that were still alive in August had mostly died of gamma poisoning by November 1946.

One of the deadly illusions of the 1946 nuclear tests was that a nuclear war could be fought, and maybe even won. The tests demonstrated that some military equipment outside the "red zone" could survive a blast and radiation in some circumstances (a relatively "clean" detonation like Able) but not in others (a dirty one like Baker). The Able shot lulled observers into a false sense of security, whereas the Baker test conveyed the deadlier risks of radiation. A ship could be seaworthy but still untouchable. The conclusions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Evaluation Board underscored the deadliest illusion of them all: that racing ahead to develop tens of thousands of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons brought security rather than risks.

Timeline of Events
1945

August 6: Bombing of Hiroshima

August 9: Bombing of Nagasaki

August 16: Lewis Strauss (who chairs the US Atomic Energy Commission when it is created) recommends to Secretary of Navy James Forrestal that a nuclear test be conducted against naval ships to demonstrate survivability

August 27: Senator Brien McMahon proposes nuclear test against Japanese ships to demonstrate vulnerability

October 27: US Fleet Admiral Ernest King proposes to use US surplus ships (80-100)

1946

January 11: President Truman appoints Vice Admiral William H.P. Blandy to chair Joint Task Force One to conduct tests

January 24: UN Atomic Energy Commission established; Operation Crossroads announced

March 7: 167 Bikini islanders relocated to Rongerik atoll

March 28: Acheson Lilienthal report issued on international control of atomic energy

June 14: Bernard Baruch delivers Baruch plan to UN Atomic Energy Commission while Congress authorizes Operation Crossroads

July 1: Able 23-kiloton airburst detonation (158 meters above target)

July 25: Baker 23-kiloton underwater detonation (90 feet below)

August: 1 Atomic Energy Act signed by President Truman, placing nuclear weapons under civilian control

Conclusion

The Able and Baker "shots'' were the first of many atmospheric nuclear tests conducted in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. The most infamous was the March 1, 1954 hydrogen bomb test (Castle Bravo) that went wrong. Designers expected a five-megaton yield, but miscalculated the reactivity of one of the bomb's components, lithium-7. The 15-megaton test destroyed Namu island and the four-and-a-half-mile wide fireball could be seen 250 miles away. Contamination reached across 100 miles, affecting 15 islands and atolls. Worse still, inhabitants were not evacuated for two days. The contamination of a Japanese fishing boat (The Lucky Dragon) 60 miles away led to some observers calling Castle Bravo the "second Hiroshima." Radioactive contaminants were detected as far away as India, Japan, Australia, and Europe, prompting worldwide condemnation and a halt by the United States and Soviet Union of atmospheric testing between 1958 and 1961. In 1963, states negotiated the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which forever banned atmospheric tests.

The Bikini inhabitants relocated several times, at some points literally starving because the alternative atolls and islands could not sustain them. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson declared the Bikini atoll fit for repopulation, based on an Atomic Energy Commission analysis. That analysis tragically underestimated the radiation contamination by a factor of 100, so that residents who returned to the atoll wound up leaving by 1978.

Today, the Bikini atoll is popular among adventure divers. The coral reefs are returning and some say the fish are safe to eat. But it is not possible to drink the water or eat the coconuts, making the atoll uninhabitable. The dream of returning is, for the Marshallese, the final deadly illusion created by Operation Crossroads.

Meet the Author

Sharon Squassoni's research, writing, and policy-making have focused on reducing risks from nuclear energy and weapons for three decades. She has held senior positions at the State Department, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Congressional Research Service, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Squassoni is on the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the PIR Center, and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from The State University of New York, a master's in public management from the University of Maryland, and a master's in national security strategy from the National War College.
This article is part of a series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by the Department of Defense.

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Operation Crossroads: A Deadly Illusion | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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The United States emerged from the crucible of World War II as an industrial superpower with a weapon that could revolutionize warfare-an atomic bomb. Demobilizing more than 10 million service personnel, returning to a peacetime economy, and creating world order were enormous, immediate challenges in late 1945.

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The Marshall Islands consist of two chains of 29 coral atolls, and are located north of the equator, between Hawaii and Australia. On each atoll there are a number of islands.

The Marshall Islands have been occupied by humans since the Micronesians arrived in the second millennium BCE. The Marshallese have lived there for thousands of years. In 1914, Japan captured the Marshall Islands and built military bases. In February 1944, U.S. Marine and Army forces defeated Japanese troops on both the Kwajalein and Enewetak atolls. Both atolls were then turned into U.S. military bases. Due to the remote location, sparse population, and other nearby U.S. military bases, the U.S. planned to test powerful nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. In 1947, the Marshall Islands became part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, created by the United Nations and then administered by the U.S. In 1946, the islands had a population of 52,000. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The U.S. conducted 23 of these tests at Bikini Atoll, and 44 near Enewetak Atoll, but fallout spread throughout the Marshall Islands.

During the post-World War II period the U.S. expanded their nuclear research and development programs. The U.S. government established the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to monitor the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. Fear of the Soviet Union increasing their atomic weapons, and the belief that building up nuclear arms could help establish U.S. power, contributed to this rapid expansion.

Operation Crossroads

The first testing series in the Marshall Islands occurred under Operation Crossroads. The purpose of Operation Crossroads was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on naval warships. Testing in the islands began at Bikini Atoll with the Shot Able test, on July 1, 1946. After Shot Able, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists confirmed the power of these weapons. They determined that soldiers on ships up to a mile away from this explosion would be instantly be killed. The U.S. then conducted the Shot Baker test on July 25.

These tests were the first time that the U.S. tested nuclear weapons since the Trinity Test in 1945. These were also the first U.S. nuclear detonations since the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs dropped over Japan. Operation Crossroads ended on August 10, 1946, due to concerns over radiation, especially to the soldiers involved. In 1969, the U.S. began a long term project to decontaminate Bikini Atoll.

Operations Greenhouse and Ivy

In January of 1950, President Truman made the decision to increase U.S. research into thermonuclear weapons, which would lead to further U.S. nuclear testing. Operation Greenhouse was a series of nuclear tests conducted at Enewetak Atoll in 1951. These were done to test design principles that would later become pivotal in the development of the hydrogen bomb. The tests aimed to reduce the overall size of nuclear weapons, including the necessary amount of fissile material, while increasing their destructive power.

The U.S. conducted its first series of thermonuclear tests, Operation Ivy, at Enewetak Atoll, in November of 1952. Shot Mike was the first successful hydrogen bomb test. Then, on November 16, the U.S. conducted the King Shot.

Castle Bravo Test

The U.S. conducted its largest nuclear detonation ever, Castle Bravo, at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. This was part of Operation Castle, a series of thermonuclear tests. Bravo was over 1,000 more times powerful than "Little Boy." Bravo used a device called "Shrimp" which used lithium deuteride as its fuel. Bravo was the first test of a deliverable hydrogen bomb.

Despite potential risks, Major General Percy Clarkson and scientific director Dr. Alvin C. Graves ordered the test to continue as planned. Due to Castle Bravo radioactive debris was released into the atmosphere, and to surrounding atolls. The test was more powerful than scientists predicted. Ocean currents, weather conditions, and wind patterns contributed to this spread of fallout and debris. The fallout was composed of pulverized coral, water, and radioactive particles, and it fell into the atmosphere appearing as ashy snowflakes. This affected nearby atolls and U.S. servicemen. Traces of radioactive material were later found in parts of Japan, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States. This was the worst radiological disaster in U.S. history and caused worldwide backlash against atmospheric nuclear testing.

Relocation of the Marshallese

In 1946, Navy Commodore Ben Wyatt met with the 167 people living on Bikini Atoll. Wyatt asked the Marshallese to relocate, and for use of their atoll "for the good of mankind." He explained that they were a chosen people and that perfecting atomic weapons could prevent future wars. The residents were promised they could return one day, but realistically they had no choice in this matter. Immediately following this speech, the U.S military began preparations to relocate the residents to Rongerik Atoll, an uninhabited island with limited resources 125 miles away. Residents of Bikini Atoll resettled in 1969, but then evacuated in 1978, after radiation levels were determined to be excessive.

A month later, the Marshallese filed a complaint with the UN, but this did not prevent U.S. nuclear testing. In 1948, the U.S. government forced residents of Enewetak Atoll to evacuate due to expanded nuclear testing with Operation Sandstone.

A week after the Castle Bravo test, the U.S. launched a medical study on the effects of radiation on Marshallese, and provided medical care to the people who were exposed to high levels of radiation. Led by Eugene P. Cronkite, the effort was called Project 4.1. Today, scholars criticize Project 4.1 because researchers did not acquire informed consent from the Marshallese who participated. "The team conducting the study did not ask the Marshallese for their consent or even explain to them that a study was being conducted," historian April Brown wrote in a 2014 article for Arms Control Today.

Despite the fact that residents of Enwetak Atoll were relocated to Rongelap, Utirik, and Ailinginae Atolls, they were all exposed to nuclear fallout, primarily as a result of the Castle Bravo test. Rongelap Atoll is just one example of how nuclear fallout and relocation affected the Marshallese. In 1954, as a result of the Castle Bravo test, many residents here suffered from burns and radiation diseases. The military did not evacuate residents until two days after the test occurred. Then, in 1957, the people of Rongelap returned. However, officials and scientists working for the AEC concluded that radiation was still a risk.

After the release of previously classified documents, the public learned that some scientists and researchers within the AEC had goals of studying humans living in radiation contaminated environments. Based on these documents this may have influenced the decision to allow the Marshallese of Rongelap to return back to the Atoll in 1957. For instance, an AEC scientist at a meeting where the decision to allow Marshallese to return to Rongelap was made stated, "It would very interesting to go back and get good environmental data, when people live in a contaminated environment. Now, data of this type has never been available. While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice." By 1985 Marshallese fled Rongelap Atoll due to high levels of contamination. The U.S. in the 1990s began to clean up part of Rongelap Atoll, under a $45 million program, but many Marshallese do not wish to return.

Health Concerns

As the nuclear testing occurred, the Marshallese were not aware of the potential dangers. A Senator of the Marshall Islands Parliament, Jeton Anjain, explained the effects of Castle Bravo, "Five hours after detonation, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap. The atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder- like substance. No one knew it was radioactive fallout. The children played in the 'snow.' They ate it."

Since U.S. nuclear testing began, there has been concern over the health risks that occur as a result of fallout and radiation. Many Marshallese have suffered from forced relocation, burns, birth defects, and cancers. Researchers have conducted numerous studies on the health effects of nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. in the Marshall Islands. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported that that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout was greater than one in three. Many adults developed cancerous thyroid nodules, two or three decades after the testing ended. In 2010, the National Cancer Institute reported, "As much as 1.6% of all cancers among those residents of the Marshall Islands alive between 1948 and 1970 might be attributable to radiation exposures resulting from nuclear testing fallout." They also suggested that up to 55% of all cancers in the northern atolls are a result of nuclear fallout. They concluded that this was a result of the Castle Bravo test.

Tony deBrum, a Castle Bravo test witness and former Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, argued that the U.S. nuclear testing caused numerous health and infrastructure issues for the Marshallese. He commented that nuclear test victims "have been taken from us before their time," so the U.S. could learn more about the "effects of such evil and unnecessary devices."

U.S. Government Reponses and Compensation

In the 1970s, the U.S. began cleaning up Enewetak Atoll to make it habitable again. Then, the majority of the Marshallese people voted to establish a new political relationship with the U.S. The Marshall Islands became the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in 1979.

In 1986, the U.S. and the RMI signed the Compact of Free Association, which granted the RMI political independence and allows Marshallese citizens to work and go to school in the U.S. The U.S. also is responsible for the defense of the RMI, and is permitted to conduct military maneuvers and testing on Kwajalein Atoll. The Compact also ensures that the U.S. provides medical care for the remaining 176 Marshallese directly affected by the Castle Bravo test. The U.S. government defines the atolls affected by radiation as Bikini, Enewetak, Utirik, and Rongelap, and they have concluded that those affected were the residents present during the testing period. This definition does not take into account the long lasting effects of radiation, the frequent movement of the Marshallese between various atolls, or those who did not live on the Marshall Islands during the testing period, who were affected.

The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal was designed under the Compact to award compensation for cancers and other serious health effects, such as burns and birth defects, attributed to nuclear testing. The U.S. established a $150 million compensation trust fund for those affected. This included individual trust funds for Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utirik. The trust funds help cover health and property damages. The U.S. Embassy website today explains that the U.S. government is "committed to a full and open collaboration with the Republic of the Marshall Islands in radiological monitoring, rehabilitation of affected atolls, and nuclear related health care assistance." The Embassy in Majuro states on its website: "The U.S. never intended for Marshallese to be hurt by the tests."

In the 1990s, the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments ( ACHRE), with the use of available government documents and witness interviews, concluded that there was no evidence "to support the claim that the exposures of the Marshallese, either initially or after resettlement, were motivated by research purposes."

RMI Today

The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands still affects the Marshallese today. U.S. nuclear testing ended in the Marshall Islands in 1958, but a UN report in 2012 stated that the effects of this testing are long-lasting. The city of Majuro is now home to the majority of the Marshallese population. Today, radiation related cancers and birth defects are a major problem faced by the Marshallese. The RMI also struggles with high suicide rates and high alcoholism rates. Diabetes (due to large amounts of imported, processed food) and cancer are the top two causes of death. Environmental issues such as rising sea levels, and degradation attributed to the nuclear testing, are also problems and often force residents to move between atolls.

Remembrance Day, March 2, is now an official holiday in the RMI. This holiday honors the victims and survivors of the nuclear testing. There are many activists in the RMI who want to ensure the protection of future generations, and to ensure that the U.S. government pays the settlements. They work to raise awareness of current health and political issues the RMI faces, due to past nuclear testing. Lani Kramer, a Marshallese councilwoman, stated, "As a result of being displaced we've lost our cultural heritage- our traditional customs and skills, which for thousands of years were passed down from generation to generation." RMI president Christopher Loeak stated that U.S. compensation "does not provide a fair and just settlement" for the damage caused by nuclear testing.

In 2014, the RMI attempted to sue the U.S. and eight other nuclear armed nations. The RMI filed the "Nuclear Zero Lawsuit," claiming that the countries have failed to move towards nuclear disarmament. The RMI did not seek monetary compensation, or cleanup operations. Instead the RMI wanted the nations to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, meaning that nations should work to decrease their nuclear arms, and that nuclear power should only promoted for peaceful uses. In 2017, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court dismissed the lawsuit.

According to a 2016 Columbia University study, radiation levels in some areas of the Marshall Islands are almost double of what is deemed safe for human habitation; but overall the islands are slowly becoming less radioactive. Very few Marshallese today live on Rongelap and Enewetak Atolls. Scientists visit Bikini Atoll, and a few caretakers live there. It is not clear when the Marshall Islands will be radiation free, or if people will return to Bikini Atoll. Radiation levels and climate change have led to overcrowding in the capital city of Majuro. Cleanup efforts continue throughout the islands and the Marshallese continue to advocate for compensation.

Timeline of Major Nuclear Tests Conducted at the Marshall Islands:

7/1/1946: Testing begins at the Marshall Islands, with Shot Able.

7/25/1946: Shot Baker is conducted, under Operation Crossroads.

4/30/1948: Shot Yoke, under Operation Sandstone, is conducted. This was the first fission weapon to use a levitated core design.

4/20/1951: Shot Easy nuclear test is conducted at Enewetak Atoll, under Operation Greenhouse. The Easy test was meant to test a new, lighter implosion bomb.

5/1951: Operation Greenhouse testing occurred at Enewetak Atoll.

11/1/1952: The Mike Shot is conducted at Enewetak, under Operation Ivy. This was the first U.S. thermonuclear test.

6/28/1958: The Oak test is conducted, at Enewetak Atoll, under the Operation Hardtack I series. This was the 6 th largest U.S. nuclear test. Hardtack I included 35 total tests. Hardtack I was the last testing series conducted on the Marshall Islands.

Further Reading:

Dan Zak, " A Ground Zero Forgotten: The Marshall Islands, Once a U.S. Nuclear Test Site, Face Oblivion Again." The Washington Post. November 27, 2015.
Bikini Islanders Still Deal with Fallout of US Nuclear Tests Life on the Marshall Islands March-1954: Castle Bravo Marshall Islands Profile and Timeline The Marshall Islands Are Disappearing No Promised Land: The Shared Legacy of the Castle Bravo Nuclear Test Radio Bikini Documentary Ralph Lapp Interview

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