WWII chapter

Leslie Cole: Sick Women and the Hooded Men of Belsen (1945)
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/international-holocaust-conference-marking-end-of-czech-eu-presidency.html









I thought this art piece by Mrs Cole was a very realistic and eye opening painting because it shows how horrible the holocaust was, without actually showing real pictures of the dead bodies laying around the camp. I thought it was horrific to see how skinny the women were in the art piece, because it brought back all of the memories of seeing the actual pictures of the people when they were found in the camps, and how close to death they looked. This whole event that happened throughout the war is the darkest point in the history of the world in my opinion, and I'm very grateful that I didn't have to live during this dark time in history. I'm very glad that the leaders of the time decided to document this point in history because, in my opinion, if they would have been forgotten to the test of time, all of these lives would have died in vein. Since they documented the holocaust, I believe that all of the deaths were not totally in vein because we now see what people are capable of, and we know to prevent it from ever being able to happen again.





Guadalcanal
artist unknown
http://dsf.chesco.org/heroes/johnson/gajohnson.html







This is an artists rendition of the invasion of Guadalcanal, which was part of the Pacific theater in WWII. I really didn't know much about the pacific theater leading up to this year, but I recently started watching a show called "The Pacific" on HBO, and it made me really interested in the battles. When we started learning about WWII, I couldn't wait to learn about the pacific theater to see if the HBO way of showing the fighting, was the same way as the history book taught us. I was pretty mad when I realized that the books information on the pacific theater was very small, and I was left wanting to learn more. I have still not looked up more information on the pacific theater, as of yet, but I plan to actually read up on the events of it later on in the future and maybe become a history buff on the event of it.






Kirhara Toshiko
bombing survivor

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/05/13/the-lesson-of-hiroshima-for-the-us-presidential-election/





This is an art piece by an actual survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and it shows the destruction that the United State did upon Japan. I thought this painting was very good because it shows how deadly the bombings were and how lifeless the land looked, according to the memory of a survivor who actually saw everything. This painting brought back the memories of debating on the subject of "if the bombings were alright or not" in the overall view of the war. This painting shows the opposite side of how I feel, because I believe the bombings by USA were alright, because they ended the war quickly, but this painting shows how maybe the bombings weren't the best idea. Although this image shows the terrible outcome of the event, I still believe these deaths were far less then an all out invasion of Japan.