A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Tell Their StoriesLarry Gara, Lenna Mae Gara Kent State University Press, 1999 - 207 pages Little is known about those who openly refused to enter military service in World War II because of their convictions against killing. While many of those men accepted alternative civilian service, more than 6,000 were incarcerated with sentences ranging from a few months to five years. Some were tried, convicted, and reimprisoned for essentially the same offense--resisting induction into the armed forces--after their initial release. In A Few Small Candles, ten men tell why they resisted, what happened to them, and how they feel about that experience today. Their stories detail the resisters' struggles against racial segregation in prison, as well as how they instigated work and hunger strikes to demonstrate against other prison injustices. Each of the ten has remained active in various causes relating to peace and social justice. This is a unique collection of memoirs that illuminated the American homefront during World War II and provides an important source for those interested in the American peace movement. |
From inside the book
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... inmates would line up in two long rows of about fifty men each and then the " count " would be taken ; during this the guards used military - type commands and en- forced strict silence . One day the mass conformity of such a regime was ...
... inmates . Naturally , anyone taking on the prison authority was supported by the in- mates , even though in talking with Stanley they came away shaking their heads at his answers to questions about his beliefs . This situ- ation ...
... inmates exclaimed , " Why , there's another barefoot boy ! " " Yeah , and look over there : see , another one ! " There was a great buzz in the dining hall . Most guards looked serious , but some smiled a bit . For myself , as I padded ...
... inmates . Most of them were in for making moonshine , and there was one dope peddler and one auto thief . Most of ... inmate whose work was being copied , " Dokes , would you help James ? PRISON MEMOIR 9.
... inmates to the Inmate Representative Com- mittee that Warden Hagerman had set up . We met at regular times and discussed various changes in prison life . Since individual radios would result in bedlam , we had a prison amplification ...
Contents
1 | |
20 | |
My Resistance to World War II | 38 |
My War and My Peace | 53 |
My War on War | 78 |
War Resistance in World War II | 98 |
Reflections of a Religious War Objector Half a Century Later | 130 |
Prison and Butterfly Wings | 152 |
How the War Changed My Life | 174 |
My Story of World War II | 194 |
Selected Additional Readings | 205 |