Brazil - Soldados da Borracha

Brazil - Soldados da Borracha

After nearly seven decades, thousands of Brazilian men recruited during World War II to go into the Amazon and extract the rubber required for everything from airplanes to gun mounts are finally being compensated for their effort. The Brazilian government is remitting 25,000 reals (roughly $7,800) to the survivors of the “rubber soldiers” program and their dependents throughout the month of March. But the 11,900 beneficiaries are a fraction of the more than 55,000 men and untold number of family members who participated in the program, which was partly sponsored by the U.S. government to fill a dangerous wartime rubber shortage. The money is welcome, as the men are elderly and most are frail. But many of them say that this amount is a pittance meant to silence them and does not fulfill the promises made to them when they signed up. “None of what they told us when we enlisted was delivered,” says José Romão Grande, 92, president of SINDSBOR, the Rubber Soldiers Union of the northern state of Rondônia. “We were used like animals and abandoned once the war was over.”
Text by  Juliana Barbassa

by Giorgio Palmera

After nearly seven decades, thousands of Brazilian men recruited during World War II to go into the Amazon and extract the rubber required for everything from airplanes to gun mounts are finally being compensated for their effort. The Brazilian government is remitting 25,000 reals (roughly $7,800) to the survivors of the “rubber soldiers” program and their dependents throughout the month of March. But the 11,900 beneficiaries are a fraction of the more than 55,000 men and untold number of family members who participated in the program, which was partly sponsored by the U.S. government to fill a dangerous wartime rubber shortage. The money is welcome, as the men are elderly and most are frail. But many of them say that this amount is a pittance meant to silence them and does not fulfill the promises made to them when they signed up. “None of what they told us when we enlisted was delivered,” says José Romão Grande, 92, president of SINDSBOR, the Rubber Soldiers Union of the northern state of Rondônia. “We were used like animals and abandoned once the war was over.”
Text by  Juliana Barbassa

Josè Romano Grande, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Francisco Pinheiro, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II. Gerson Viana Galvao, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Augusto E. De Morais, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II. Gabriel De Jesus, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Josè Anisio Macieira, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II. Francisco Pinheiro, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Gabriel De Jesus, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II. Josè Anisio Macieira, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Francisco Ferreira Lemos, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II. One of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Josè Romano Grande, one of the survivors of the army of the rubber ("Exercito Da Borracha"). Photo of the National Museum of Porto Velho representing the collection of rubber during World War II.