Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe Bataan Death March of 1942 has entered historical consciousness as one of the ultimate measures of Japanese wartime barbarity. At a level bound up with deference to the veterans who experienced such hardship, a compelling reality emerges: Helpless Americans marched under the watchful eyes and cruel bayonets of the Japanese oppressor, and the Filipinos, in despair over the defeat of their defenders, wept in sympathy as they watched. The pattern reinforces pleasing notions of a benevolent colonial relation, the "good war" against a barbarous enemy, and loyal allies enlisted in a righteous cause. Yet thousands of men, women, and children of three nationalities and various classes participated in the complex drama that came to represent the Death March. Their complexity demands an interpretation that goes beyond the simplicity of "oppressor – victim – sympathetic observer." This article finds another story which does not replace the first but which includes American racism and colonial support for Filipino elites, and Filipino divisiveness, poverty, resentment, and Death March exploitation of American weakness and need.

AbstractThe television and radio documentary "The Tragedy of Bataan" uses extensive interviews with survivors to bring the 1942 Bataan Death March to life for contemporary viewers. The filmmaker, whose father was a POW in the Philippines, describes the process of gathering the interviews and putting them together into a compelling story. She describes the film strategy of having the men and women involved tell the story in their own words, with no historians or experts on camera; explains how a documentary film differs from a written monograph; and explores the constraints set by television and by the television audience. Allowing these participants and eye-witnesses to tell the story conveys their perceptions of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, of General Douglas MacArthur, and of the suffering, the humor, and the heroism of the common American soldiers.

Item 1020-A, 1020-B (microfiche). ; "Serial no. 59." ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; Mode of access: Internet.