35 Brutalities People Survived Despite The Savagery They Had To Endure

We lead relatively blessed lives compared to some of our counterparts throughout history. While some may view chipping a nail as a calamity worthy of concern, others fight for survival daily. This imbalance of power has resulted in numerous groups being victimised for nefarious reasons throughout history. Tragically, these groups have endured horrific acts against them, yet they have remarkably survived. The resilience of humanity is certainly not to be underestimated, as illustrated by the stories shared in response to an online question. Inspired by a Redditor asking, "What’s a real historical event where a group of people endured unimaginable hardship and still emerged alive?", we’ve compiled the most compelling answers in the gallery below.

#1

Image source: mister4string, Wunabbis / Wikipedia The rugby team that survived a plane crash in the Andes Mountains in the 70s and only survived by eating the dead. An incredible story despite how gruesome it sounds.

#2

Image source: alwaysboopthesnoot, Wikipedia The very young children who survived The Mountain Meadows M******e, in Utah. They had to be bought by federal troops who arrived in force, to retrieve them. They were captured by the Mormons in Utah who had committed the m******e and k****d or ordered the parents to be k****d, in collusion with area native tribes with whom they shared the stolen bounty from the wagon trains passing through. After k*****g the parents, trail guides, native scouts and all older siblings over the age of 8, they then stole all the children’s and the family belongings, passing them out to other townspeople. The ransoms paid by the federal troops were for food, clothing and shelter allegedly “freely given” to the children, by the caretaker families in town who claimed they saved these kids and hoped to adopt them some day.

#3

Image source: cototudelam, Wikipedia Millions entered the N**i concentration camps; many died there but some made it out alive. Some are still alive to this day, it's worth listening to them.

#4

Image source: Helen_A_Handbasket, Wikipedia The Armenian death march.

#5

Image source: EssentiaLillie, bortescristian / envatoelements My grandma's village during the Great Chinese Famine. They had to eat insects, tree barks and even actual soil. But most of them made it out alive. Surprisingly most of them lived quite long as well (many are in their 80s to 90s right now and going strong).

#6

Image source: volkerbaII, Wikipedia A group of Chilean miners survived for more than a month a mile+ underground after a collapse trapped them in the mine. Rescuers were able to drill down to the "refuge" where they hoped some men had taken shelter. They did find the men there, and gradually brought them up through the hole one by one in a special capsule. Probably the deepest mine rescue ever, by a long shot.

#7

Image source: Professional-Bad1150, Frank Hurley / Wikipedia The Shackleton Antarctic expedition (1914–1916), where his crew survived two years trapped in ice without a single death.

#8

Image source: Comedynerd, Wikipedia My girlfriend's parents survived the Khmer Rouge .

#9

Image source: olderthanbefore, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration The Trail of Tears. The Long March. The Siege of Stalingrad. .

#10

Image source: zealot_ratio, Lmaotru / Wikipedia Trail of Tears. As well as other forced relocations. Many didn't make it out alive, but the people endured as a whole.

#11

Image source: titaniac79, Zofia Nalepińska-Bojczuk / Wikipedia I had great grandparents who survived the Holodomor in Ukraine.

#12

Image source: BubblegumBabe_01, National Park Service Design Center, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia The Harriet Tubman led Underground Railroad is a powerful example enslaved people escaping brutal oppression, navigating dangerous terrain, and risking everything for freedom, with Tubman guiding many to safety despite constant threats. Their courage and resilience under unimaginable hardship changed history.

#13

Image source: gotthelowdown, Wikipedia This story stuck with me: >The following is inspired after listening to George Takei give a lecture on how US Japanese citizens were treated in World War Two. The article tells the story of a group of men, who for the most part, were regarded by the US as being little better than the enemy. >. . . Perhaps their most amazing battle, happened on the Gothic Line. The Gothic Line formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence in the final stages of World War II along the summits of the northern part of the Apennine Mountains during the fighting retreat of the German forces in Italy against the Allied Armies in Italy commanded by General Sir Harold Alexander. >. . . The men of the 442nd came up with a daring idea. Their commanders realized that while the forward parts of the mountain were heavily defended, the back side of it, a sheer cliff, was not. > > A company of the 442nd then, volunteered to climb the rear of the mountain, and to attack the enemy from this point, taking advantage of the fact that the Germans would not be expecting an attack from there. > > Late at night, they began the climb. Slowly working their way up the treacherous thousand foot cliff. Not all made it. Many fell to their deaths...but **they did not fall screaming. They fell *silently*.** > > These men knew, that if any sound was heard from this area, if any German sentry happened to hear the sound of a man screaming as he fell to his death, then the attack would fail. So they climbed in silence, and they died...in silence. > > The men climbed for nearly eight hours, losing close to half their number to falling, before just before daybreak they reached the top of the mountain. Hunkering down they waited for the sun to come up, and then pressed their attack. > > The Germans were caught surprised, and that one company managed to not only take the hill, but break the back of the Gothic Line. >A six month stalemate was broken by the 442nd in roughly 32 minutes of hard fighting. >When the war ended, the 442nd held the distinction of being the most decorated military unit in U.S. military history. I can't even imagine the level of discipline and total self-control you'd need to have to not scream as you fell off a mountain to your death. Also to the survivors, who had to keep on climbing after seeing the risk first-hand by watching their fellow soldiers die. They had to finish the mission or their brothers-in-arms died for nothing.

#14

Image source: juniperberrie28, John L. Ransom / Wikipedia The survivors of the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville. Most of the pows were effectively slowly starved to death.

#15

Image source: dan_jeffers, United States Library of Congress WWI trench warfare was absolutely horrifying. P****n gases, poor ventilation, no way to manage human waste so it was everywhere. More people died of dysentery than anything and being trapped with someone dying of dysentery is its own horror. [Some people fact checked me on dysentery being the biggest cause of death. Apparently it was a lot smaller overall. Apologies for getting that detail wrong.].

#16

Image source: RoyaleWhiskey, Library of Congress The Donner Party.

#17

Image source: SomeoneOne0, NBT news / Youtube Soccer team stuck underground water cave in South East Asia.

#18

Immaculee Ilibagiza survived the Rwandan h*******t in 1994 by hiding in a bathroom for 3 months, with 7 or 8 other women. The pastor who hid them was able to give them enough calories to barely keep them alive (spies kept track of how many groceries people bought) and they were almost discovered several times. Image source: wilderlowerwolves

#19

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster. Although not everybody made it out alive. Jon Krakeur, who was an established writer, was on the expedition and he survived to tell the story beautifully in _Into Thin Air_. It's probably my favourite book of all time. Image source: BeetledPickroot

#20

I am Jewish so vaguely gestures at history. Image source: Redditthedog

#21

Image source: TryToHelpPeople, National Maritime Museum Captain Bligh and the crew released to die in the South Pacific by Fletcher Christian and the mutineers. In an extraordinary act of seamanship Bligh navigated to the Dutch East Indies - a voyage of over 1400 Km in just a launch, and not a single man died.

#22

Image source: Puzzleheaded-Bag2212, NASA Apollo 13. Absolutely insane. Rest in peace Jim Lovell.

#23

Image source: TBK_Winbar, InspiredWithAustin Please take a look at *The Long Walk*. It's a memoir by a Polish PoW who escaped from a Siberian G***g and walked 4,000 miles, basically the width of Russia, home with a group of fellow escapees. It's been adapted into a pretty good film starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell called *The Way Back Home*, definitely worth watching.

#24

I'd imagine the Trail of Tears is the perfect event for this prompt. Granted not everyone involved survived but a good amount of people did. Genuinely a f****d up and tragic event. Image source: MasterTahirLON

#25

Image source: Appollo1816, Wikipedia The Wager / the wager mutiny. Especially if you're interested in Shackleton give Granns book on it a read. A British ship disappears while attempting to round cape horn or find drakes passage in the 1740s. Years later some of the crew make it back to London with a story, a long while after others from the same expedition make it back with a different tale (mutiny). The way these guys survived is literally some of the most hardcore endurance I've ever read about, the survivors in many ways beating out Shackleton's crew despite the huge number of deaths. I don't want to spoil it but a story that just gets deeper and deeper into how hardcore, brave, and selfish humans can be. They just. Refused. To. Quit.

#26

Image source: idancegood, S. Tzortzis / Wikipedia The black death was one of the most traumatic and scarily confusing events in history for those living at the time. To make it out alive when everyone you know died must have changed everything. Young, old, none were safe.

#27

Image source: flo-ridad, National Maritime Museum The crew of the Endurance, which survived 2 years in the Weddell Sea after their ship got stuck in the ice. Then the ice tore the ship to shreds so they had to camp directly on the ice...until it started melting and had to take the lifeboats all the way to Elephant island. From there, the team leader, Ernest Shackleton took a crew to South Georgia to get some help from whalers there. The problem was that the settlement was on the Eastern shore of the island, and they beached their craft on the West coast. So they made makeshift cleats and pulled off the first crossing of the island (a feat not repeated until 40-ish years later) to reach the nearest whaling station. There's a great book recounting the expedition. It's amazing how they all made it out alive (just one guy had to be amputated on Elephant island due to frostbite).

#28

Image source: bagsoffreshcheese, Wikipedia The wreck of the Batavia. A story of shipwreck, mutiny, betrayal, m****r, and in the end, justice. A Dutch East India company ship call the Batavia on its maiden voyage to Batavia, modern Jakarta. It hit a reef off an isolated archipelago off the Western Australian coast. Most made it to the little islands but there wasn’t any fresh water available so they could only use what they salvaged from the wreck or harvested from occasional rainfall. The captain and a few others jumped into an open sailboat to try and find water on the mainland. If they couldn’t they were going to end up sailing to the city of Batavia to get help. They couldn’t so they did. This in itself is an amazing tale of survival and seamanship. Meanwhile back on the islands, the bloke running the show, who was planning on mutinying and seizing the ship before it hit the reef, starts to consolidate his powers. He divides up the survivors and sends them to various islands under the guise of searching for fresh water. Meanwhile, he directs his fellow mutineers to start k*****g various people on the main island they are set up on. This develops into wholesale mass m****r on the other islands he sent groups of people too. The women of age are generally spared to be used as s*x slaves. However a group of soldiers that been sent to a larger island have actually found fresh water, and food. These soldiers are not part of the mutineers and keep signalling to the main group that they have found supplies and to come and pick them up. But no assistance is sent. But they end up hearing of the mass m*****s from escapees from the other islands. They prepare defences for the inevitable showdown. Eventually, the main mutineer decides that they need to attack this island. There are a series of little battles where the mutineers are prevented from gaining a foothold on the island. Eventually help arrives from Batavia and it turns into a by the survivors to be able to tell their story, and the mutineers who want to take over the rescue ship. The survivors win. Justice is swift and harsh. However two younger mutineers are marooned on the Australian mainland as punishment.

#29

One of the oldest: The March of the 10.000, chronicled in Anabasis by Xenophon, who was there and became one of their leaders. In 400BC 10.000 Greek mercenaries fight for the Persian pretender-king, they win an important battle, but their king dies. Now they're stuck in the middle of enemy territory and everyone is out to get them. Their march lasts two years and a significant portion don't survive. Image source: Cabbage_Vendor

#30

New Orleans residents during Hurricane Katrina. Lots died, but many made it out alive. Image source: PotentialChoice8323

#31

Image source: ShineAtom, State Library of Queensland. Japanese prisoner of war camps in WW2.

#32

Image source: Noshin45, Wikipedia Read In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. The true story of Moby D**k. Whale sinks the Essex in the middle of the Pacific, three lifeboats full of crew set adrift, one boat makes it with two survivors, resorted to cannibalism, captain eats his nephew. Crazy story.

#33

The Irish Potato Famine (genocide). Millions died when the blight struck the potato crop. I say genocide because it wasn’t their only food but the English sent other food offshore to feed their troops in India. Some however, of course, did make it through. Image source: Ozdiva

#34

Image source: Anonymoosehead123, François-Auguste Biard / Wikipedia African slaves who survived the voyages to the U.S.

#35

Image source: Blecher_onthe_Hudson, Sheridan House As a teen I was into the 'lifeboat' survival genre. There's several books about people who spent more than a month at sea in a raft or lifeboat. Survive the Savage Sea was a memorable one, as was The Raft and 117 Days Adrift.