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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... 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 ...
... military , an option preferred by members of the Seventh Day Ad- ventist Church . The 4 - E classification was for those who would not accept military service but who were willing to do civilian work of " national importance ...
... military - type commands and en- forced strict silence . One day the mass conformity of such a regime was glaringly broken when a new prisoner stood in the line without shoes or stockings . This created a sensation among guards and in ...
... and through the magic of his tenor voice . Before he came to Ashland , he was riding across Texas in a train on which seven German prisoners of war were guarded by a military policeman . The military police ( MP ) PRISON MEMOIR 13.
... military policeman . The military police ( MP ) had the Germans eat early to avoid contact with other passengers in the diner , though one woman got angry because they were to eat before her . As the MP and his prisoners filed by , she ...
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 |