History
The Last fanfare
-kushagra Sisodia
Fear. Raw and unbridled fear. Imagine that as your last emotion. Sounds like something straight out of a horror movie doesn’t it? Well, for many people in Europe, during the era of World War II, this was very common.
Imagine this now. You are reading the newspaper in your living room. Your significant other is preparing dinner in the kitchen. And then you hear it. The last noise you will ever hear. And you panic. You were not prepared for this. You pray. Pray for mercy. And then it is over. Nothing lasts. Everything, gone. World War II surely had physical warfare, yes. But psychological warfare was the one that dealt the damage. That noise. The noise of the Stuka Bombers flying overhead and thus, marking their arrival and your end. The mental effect this had on the numerous victims of the Nazi air force resulted in no resistance. All victims, regardless of their position, had accepted their fate, once they heard those sirens. Those sirens came to be known as the Jericho Trumpets.
In the Bible, it is stated that the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for six whole days and on the seventh day played their trumpets which caused the walls to fall. When the residents of Jericho, who already feared the Israelites, heard those trumpets, they were distraught. The city of Jericho was
eventually conquered by the Israelites. Hence, the name was given to the Stuka Bomber sirens.
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Psychological warfare is as lethal as physical warfare, if not more. Haunting noises, long train rides to the concentration camps and the discovery of nuclear fission were just some of the ways the Nazis hijacked the brains of their unsuspecting victims. Wars provide solutions, sure. Violence causes peace, sure. But how fragile is that peace and how effective are those solutions? Negotiation could have solved many of the world problems. But it was not meant to be. The use of such psychological warfare must be strictly regulated. The Stuka Sirens have caused PTSD in numerous victims. In today’s day and age, depression is as serious a problem as violence and it must be resolved as soon as possible. Psychological warfare is as damaging as physical warfare and only causes regression in terms of depression and trauma. Granted, Germany had the upper hand in most aerial fights because of this but was that upper hand really worth it?
Humans were given knowledge, not to misuse it, but to improve it. The Stuka Bombers stand testimony to the fact that the humans of that generation failed to improve their knowledge. We need to make sure that we are different from them.After all, that is what we have been fighting for.
Invisible Wounds:
PTSD from the american civil war
-MamaTha Shastri
The result of a 4-year long war may have yielded what we know today as “The land of the free and the home of the brave”, however, the wounds it left embedded into American society have not been forgotten or left unhonoured. Specifically, the invisible wounds. The invisible wounds that caused thousands of perfectly bodied soldiers to come home broken by war. The invisible wounds that presented themselves as gross aftermaths of a gruesome war. PTSD.
Army Recruits
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Geographically, the Civil War servicemen were far less distant from home than soldiers in foreign wars while not having effective ways to communicate with their
Insane asylums
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Admissions into Insane asylums spread across the United States of America like wildfire, majority of the solitary confinement asylums overbooked. In these asylums, "hydrotherapy" (water) or "electrotherapy" (shock) were used along with hypnosis in vain attempts to re-establish traumatized soldiers
into having productive post-war lives. Genealogists have even rediscovered forgotten veterans in their graves in asylum cemeteries.
loved ones back home. These conditions contributed to what Civil War doctors termed “nostalgia,” a centuries-old term for despair and homesickness. Despair and homesickness so severe that soldiers became listless, emaciated and sometimes died. Military and medical officials recognized nostalgia as a serious “camp disease,” but generally blamed it on behavioural faults such as “feeble will,” “moral turpitude” and inactivity in camp. The recommended treatment was in-fact the shaming of “nostalgic” soldiers—or, better yet, “the excitement of an active campaign,” meaning non-friendly combat. This was one of the primitive forms of trauma that taxed many young soldiers.
Disease
Bullets, shells and bombs did not threaten soldiers as much as diseases and infection did. Amongst the distinctly unsanitary camps and unhygienic overcrowding, diarrhoea
claimed its position as their primary enemy. Rheumatism, malaria and continued chronic diarrhoea lingered amongst the servicemen, killing off twice as many men as cobat did.
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These were the suspected causes of PTSD in American Civil War soldiers.
RETURNING HOME
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Close family members of soldiers described some soldiers as “eerie” or “changed” after they returned home from service. This was because PTSD or even a trauma inflicted mental illness was an undiscovered concept. Men who exhibited what today would be termed war-related PTSD were thought to have character flaws or underlying physical problems. Families of young soldiers had no know-how about traumatic disorders and were thus, quick to blame the sufferer's behaviour on Insanity.
Divorce, Drugs and Suicides
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Divorce rates sky-rocketed during these years, considering that a majority of the soldier population had left their spouses and children
at home while they left for war. Helpless wives, unable to handle traumatic episodes and dramatic flashbacks and constant anger, left their husbands in search of more peaceful and “normal” lives.
Throughout the 1800s, opiates were widely available and generously dispensed for pain and other ills, causing a large population of veterans to rely on them for relief of some kind. Drug addictions followed, driving families farther away from veterans and veterans from society.
All of the above snowballed into a jump in veteran suicide rates. PTSD riddled, suffering ex-army men ending their pain in the only way they could find solace - Suicide.
CONCLUSION
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In 1980, nearly a century post the American Civil War, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized the term “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder” in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). Although the exact number of PTSD victims from the war is hard to pin down and impossible to reduce into statistics, those heroic soldiers’ accounts, their stories and experiences helped make massive breakthroughs in the field of psychiatry and the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.
Oskar Schindler
-Vishnu Kishor Thampi
Oskar Schindler cheated on his wife, was an alcoholic by nature, spied for Nazis and his only interest was to make a profit. But Oskar Schindler saved more than 1,200 jews from being deported to one of the most infamous concentration camps in Nazi Germany - Auschwitz. Oskar Schindler discovered humanity when it was most required, during the nauseating scene of events that was WW2.
After the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939, an enamelware factory in Krakow owned by a Jewish man was bought by Oskar. The factory was renamed Deutsche Emalwarenfabrik Oskar Schindler (German Enamelware Factory Oskar Schindler), more popularly known as Emalia. For Germans this was another step forward in ‘germanization’/ ‘aryanization’ and for Oskar, it acted as a portal to astronomical amounts of money. Oskar owned a total of 3 factories in Krakow but Emalia was the only factory in which he employed Jewish forced labourers. At its apex in 1944, the factory had a total of 1,700 workers of which a little over 1000 were Jewish forced labourers (relocated from the ghetto). The conditions were harsh and bitter, but Oskar ensured the well being of his Jewish workers by bribing officials and adding an armament manufacturing division to his enamelware factory to show the Germans that these Jews are in fact an integral part of the war effort.
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Using his irresistible charm and money (of course) in October 1944 he transferred his factory from Krakow
to Brünnlitz (Brnenec) in Moravia, the plan being to reopen solely as an armaments factory. His assistants and a German officer, over a period of many months, helped draw out multiple lists of Jewish workers required at the new armaments factory. The group of lists came to be collectively
known as “Schindler's list” (like Spielberg's oscar winning film). The camp saved 800 Jewish men who were to be relocated to Plaszow and 300-400 women who were to be relocated to Auschwitz. Schindler stayed with his workers and left only on May 9th 1945, when the ‘camp’ was liberated by the soviet army. The survivors came to be known as “Schindler's Jews”. They have over 8,500 descendants living across the USA, Europe and Israel.
Schindler's story is a story of change, required change. When he couldn't handle the oppression faced by his Jewish workers, he took matters into his own hands, risking his life and his profits to save them. It truly goes to show that good can be found in the darkest of times.