Research Results

Before I started researching I just wanted to know why World War II had started, and I did find that out and I'll talk about it later, but before I got to that information something else caught my eye. There was an article on the PBS site about POWs. Seeing as I'd never learned about them, I wanted to get some insight as to how POWs were treated during the war. What I found, however, made me regret looking at the information in the first place.

Prisoners of war were treated terribly. According to PBS, they were given rotten food and cold, uncomfortable places to sleep. The Japanese split the POWs into groups of ten people, and if one person did something wrong then the entire group would be taken down to the docks and shot.

After reading that, I continued on my search for why the war was started. And I found it. It was Germany...again. What happened was that Hitler wanted a part of Poland, and after Britain and France so willingly gave him Sudetenland, he figured he might as well just go in and take it without consulting anyone. But apparently, this was crossing the line and taking Poland was too much after taking poor Sudetenland. What's interesting is that even thought there had been severe animosity between the two countries before, Germany and The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression act just five days before Hitler tried to take Poland. Interesting, right? Meanwhile, the French suggested that Hitler should try to negotiate with Poland. But Hitler had had enough of negotiations and decided that he would just go in and take it. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and Britain and France declared war on Germany a day later.