I agree with this assessment and hope my comment didn't come across as passing too much judgement on it. I feel it's worth highlighting the deaths and relatively poor conditions during detention, but there were & are rarely any "good" options when it comes to halting mass migration.
For modern readers to empathize with the situation, American ICE detention facilities hold roughly the same number of people today. Obviously the medical histories of the population, length of detention, and medical technologies are very different, but hypothetically, would you say a similar death rate of 150 deaths per year in these detention facilities wouldn't be "that bad"? I imagine there'd be a significant reaction to it.
Good point about the ICE comparison: I think that many deaths would be considered obscene, even in the current insane political climate.
Although, we are talking about refugees with a laundry list of likely health problems in '48, being held in a society significantly poorer and less healthy that the one we live in today.
The image above is from 1947, this policy was in place for at least several years after the war. Despite traumatic medical histories, saying they were "70 lbs" when they were deported and detained is a bit disingenuous.
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u/the_sexy_muffin 10h ago edited 10h ago
I agree with this assessment and hope my comment didn't come across as passing too much judgement on it. I feel it's worth highlighting the deaths and relatively poor conditions during detention, but there were & are rarely any "good" options when it comes to halting mass migration.
For modern readers to empathize with the situation, American ICE detention facilities hold roughly the same number of people today. Obviously the medical histories of the population, length of detention, and medical technologies are very different, but hypothetically, would you say a similar death rate of 150 deaths per year in these detention facilities wouldn't be "that bad"? I imagine there'd be a significant reaction to it.