In listening to some love letters between a soldier from WWII and his lover, I was able to understand the true connection and love behind words. I felt as if this was the type of relationship that was needed during this time; something where you can hold on to physical letters, having the ability to always look back on the thoughts that someone had written down. Love letters are different than regular letters, where you would just write down simple things going on in your life or how you are doing. With letters between you and someone you love, emotions pour out and the two express their pure thoughts about the other, being completely vulnerable. I admire how open Chris was towards Bessie and how he said anything that was on his mind. I wish I heard more with how Bessie felt, but besides that I felt like they both equally expressed their love and understanding with each other. Even though they met through writing to each other, they still insisted on getting married, which worked out well anyways. It just goes to show that you do not ned physical conversation nor touch to fall in love. It’s amazing how people can fall in love through exchanging letters and having the strong trust in one another to be faithful and wait to one day be together. I wonder how many relationships had lasted in WWII with people who were fighting.
9/26 Holocaust Letters and Classmates Presentations
3 Points: reading a letter by a child living through the holocaust was eye opening and saddening, as she had expressed gratitude and appreciation for her families letters. I admire how appreciative she is of the little packages and letters she had received and treasures from her family, she said it was like having “A little piece of you”. So grateful for them. She was very optimistic and positive, as she had hope for being together again with her family. That is the only thing that she looks forward to. Misses her siblings and parents and doesn’t want anyone to worry about her. It’s just sad thinking about how this was the last letter she had sent before she was killed in the womens concentration camp in France. Considering her living conditions, she was so thoughtful and uplifting with the way she wrote these letters. She wanted to make sure everyone she loved was doing okay. Another letter that I read about, young girl, She secretly wrote this last letter in a bunker as her last goodbye, knowing she was going to die soon. Poured out all her her last thoughts, as she was trembling and crying with her mother and father. She knew everything was lost but was proud to be Jewish and dying for her people. I just thought this was packed with so much emotion, as she wished the best for everyone who would be alive reading this but you can tell this letter was rushed. The last point I have is that I think that from what I have read so far regarding holocaust letters, they either are pouring out emotion and last minute appreciation and gratitude for their lives and religion or writing about having hope for the future.
2 Questions: one question I have is how the secretly written letters from the holocaust were preserved and the second is, how was anti-Jewish legislation in Germany established?
1 aha Moment: Having listened to my classmates presentations on different Muhlenberg alumni who had served during WWII, I gained a deeper understanding of their personal experiences and relationships, as I had an insight to specific emotions and situations that they had wrote about in letters to the office of Muhlenberg alumni or their loved ones. Considering some of their letters were v-mail, it was interesting to see how they had to get around to the restrictions on what they could say. In general, I was pleasantly surprised with how positive and hopeful most of the letters were. The alumni were grateful for the ability to write letters and the ones sent to them were something they could hold on to from their old lives with their families and at Muhlenberg. I admire how a lot of them had a great perspective on life, even though they had to give up their last year/years at Muhlenberg, and some went to achieve great things after the war was over.
WWII Japanese Internment Camp Letters to Clara Breed
3 points: the children sent letters to Clara Breed and felt safe enough to talk to her about their experiences in the camps, expressing how they felt (ex. some children complained how they were only allowed showers for 2,000+ people. sometimes they didn’t have access to basic food, like dairy, eggs, butter… there were some schools that were created so that the children could learn during this time, so they were grateful for that and grateful to miss breed for giving them books, responding to them.). The letter i specifically read was from Christmas Day and Hisako Watanabe’s brother, Jack, didn’t have any toys for Christmas and the books that Clara Breed gave made up for the loss of joy during their time in internment. Clara Breed helped the children and young adults by sending letters and assisting with requests for supplies and advocating for activism, which is very admirable and something to emulate. Clara breed was simply a librarian at San Diego Public Library, and when she saw that there were children in need of help, she was one of the few people that Japanese American young adults and children looked up to and sent letters to.
2 questions: Reading the letters that the children wrote makes me question just how the exectuive order was able to pass in the first place. While I understand that the Japanese were fighting alongside the Nazis (Axis power alliance) I don’t recall having seen this occur in other instances of history… where the U.S. imprisons American citizens that just happen descend from a country in which we are fighting a war against (ex. this has never happened to the British citizens during the War of 1812, or Spanish citizens during the Spanish-American war). While this may just be attributed to racism, it is just utterly mind-boggling. I had read that Eleanor Roosevelt had tried to persuade FDR against passing the executive order, but even then he continued to let it pass.
Another question which came to mind during the readings was I wonder what it was like for Clara Breed to receive so many letters from these children’s. It must have been emotionally and mentally distressing to read what the children were going through, especially when she received letters from such a numerous amount of children. Her way of comforting them was solely through books, and perhaps this helped give her some piece of mind that they could live some semblance of a normal childhood. But I know for myself that reading through these letters caused my heart to ache, knowing that these innocent children had to suffer and experience such trauma out of the irrationality of the U.S. government… and knowing how I personally felt I can’t imagine how Clara Breed or the children felt during that time.
1 aha moment: these letters gave great insight into what it was like to be a child living in the internment camps. While in a regular history class you can learn the facts of internment and the hrrible conditions that Japanese Americans had to live through just for being a different race during WWII, the letters written by children help emphasize just how cruel the Internment camps were. Children are not prone to lying, and are often uncensored with their thoughts. Their complaints about food, showering, and their lack of toys help to reaffirm the tragdey that was Executive Order 9066.
