War: Death, Suffering and Destruction

War: Death, Suffering and Destruction

War. A common term heard nowadays. But what is the true mening of war? Is it the correction of what someone thinks is evil? Is it the submission to someone else’s point of view? Is it the autodestructioin of human kind? There are a lot of meanings to war. It is up to each person to give the term war a meaning.

Many people are forced to leave their homes, families and everything they have because of war. Others lose their beloved ones (friends, family or comrades) and suffer because of their death. There are others whose lives are not taken away from them by death but by war itself since people that live through war are marked for ever. Destruction, suffering and death are only some of the outcomes of war.

During a war people have to move out of their homes, even out of their home country, leaving everything they have behind in order to survive. An example of this can be seen in the movie Europa, Europa directed by Agnieska Holland. Salomon, the main character has to leave his house, his family, his school and everything else he has in order to survive during World War II. As he leaves home he has to suffer the loss of life as he knows it. He has to deal with saying goodbye to his old life and starting a new one leaving his successes and his failures behind. He must start from zero. All this is really tough for a person, especially for a teenager like Salomon. Usually people that run away are people who have a future, that still have a whole life to live. It is not fair that because of war a young person has to start a new life, to leave behind everything that makes up his life, to leave behind his efforts to make his life worth living.

Another example of someone who has to leave everything behind is Paul, the main character of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Paul is a soldier fighting in World War I. He is eighteen years old and he has to leave his home, his family and everything else he has in order to go fight the war. His family has to suffer since they do not know if Paul is coming back. Also, Paul suffers because he has to leave a life he had already created in order to go and fight for his country.

When people have to leave home because of war, a family is destroyed. Leaving everything behind is something hard to do, specially for young people, and it causes sadness and suffering.

A person suffers when someone they love or care for leaves. A person suffers even more when one of their beloved ones dies. Innocent people die all the time during wars causing suffering and sometimes even leaving a hollow space in society due to the importance of that person to society. Franz Kemmerich, a soldier fighting in World War I, in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, is injured during a combat. This injure is the cause of his death. Kemmerich’s death affecs his comrades: Paul, Muller and many others, and it also affects his mother. This people have to suffer because of the death of an innocent person due to war. “He is not the first that I have seen thus; but we grew up together an that alwas makes it a bit different. I have copied his essays...” (Remarque 29) Paul, one of Kemmerich’s comrades, has to see him die. As he expresses in the quote mentioned before, he has seen a lot of people die in the war but it is different with Franz since Franz is a person he cared for. They grew up together and now because of war only memories of their good times are left.

Not only does death because of war cause suffering to people who cared for and loved the person that is killed but it also destroys families and it leaves hollow spaces in society. For instance Gerald Duvla, a French soldier fighting World War I in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, is killed. He is an innocent man that has a family. A daughter and a wife. Also, he occupies an important place in society, he is a printer. When he is killed the the place that he has in society is destroyed and he can no longer give society his services. Also, his family is destroyed. Proably he was the one who worked in order to have money to mantain the family now who is going to do that if he is dead? Pleople being killed in a war have many consquences.