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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... protest the Allied embargo of food shipments to European countries then under German control . In 1941 , Eleanor Meaner and I were married , and while I was working as New England Youth Secretary with the Fellowship of Rec- onciliation ...
... protesting Stanley's treatment and asking that he be released into the general population . While the administration did not discipline us , they did not ignore what we had done either , as a united action by any group is carefully ...
... protest life and refused parole with strings , serving his full sentence . He later became one of Wilmington ... protests and later in life outfitted a stationwagon with an amplifier , camping equipment , and large signs with peace ...
... protest of the methods of censoring his mail . It is one thing to read about Gandhi's fasts , and it is another to see a colleague fasting every day , drinking only water , and carrying on his work , day by day growing thinner and ...
... protesting not only censorship but the right of free access to books , papers , et al . for all prison inmates . Here at Ashland one of the former members of the Newark Ashram has joined the Lewis- burg fast and [ has ] not been eating ...
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 |