Evacuation in WW2

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Q1)  Study Sources B and C.

Which Source is the most useful as evidence about the start of the children’s                 evacuation journey?

Explain your answer using Sources B and C and using knowledge from your studies.

A1)  I believe Source C is more useful than Source B as evidence about the start of the children’s evacuation journey because it was a first hand account of the evacuation from a teacher. I also think that what the teacher described about would have been true as it is not something you forget about to easily. I don’t think Source B was good evidence because it was only one picture of people being evacuated, there were probably many other images of evacuees, but being unhappy, not the opposite. Plus because it was issued by the Government, I think they intentionally chose this picture to publish because I would have convinced more parents to send off their children into the countryside. But on the other hand, Source C was written in 1988, so as the age of this teacher could have been between 75-85 years old when the interview was carried out, his/her memory could have been slightly distorted.

   But then again, Source B does provide some equally good points. It was true that some children were looking forward to going away. Some children thought of it as a holiday, some children maybe even thought of the evacuation as an escape from either their parents or their home life. When the children were in the countryside, they might have been given a better sense of life; they had fresh fruit and vegetable grown in the back gardens of their carer’s homes. Whereas if they were still in the city, they would have had to live on rationed scraps of food. I also think that the children could have been smiling because they would not had been with their father for a little while and would then have already been used to being near enough on their own. Nevertheless, the only photographs that were taken of evacuees had to be issued by the Government, to try and influence other parents to send their children away. This could prove the photo gave a misleading interpretation to the British public, which would mean that the photo was taken of people forcibly smiling and laughing and waving.

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    Overall, I would say that Source C is more useful in describing the beginning of the children’s journey through Evacuation.  


Q2)   Source G is an extract taken from a novel.

         Is it reliable as evidence about evacuees?

         Explain your answer using Source G and knowledge from your studies.

A2)   I think Source G is reliable as evidence about some evacuees because it was true that people who lived in the city were poorer than people who lived in the countryside. To ...

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