claire.foxx
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- Thread starter claire.foxx
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Yeah, that's an interesting and moving read.
My italian grandparents suffered a similar fate, with my grandfather being interned during the war (on the isle of man). My grandmother was pregnant with my father at the time, and their eldest son became responsible as the breadwinner for the family during the war, running the family cafe, looking after his 6 younger brothers and sisters etc. He would have been early teens at the time, and had a life-long resentment for how his father had been treated which is how I know all these stories.
It's one of those things that means so much on a personal level, but at the same time so little in the broader story of the fight for freedom that was world war II.
My italian grandparents suffered a similar fate, with my grandfather being interned during the war (on the isle of man). My grandmother was pregnant with my father at the time, and their eldest son became responsible as the breadwinner for the family during the war, running the family cafe, looking after his 6 younger brothers and sisters etc. He would have been early teens at the time, and had a life-long resentment for how his father had been treated which is how I know all these stories.
It's one of those things that means so much on a personal level, but at the same time so little in the broader story of the fight for freedom that was world war II.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
The thing that really jumped out at me was this quote:
The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on American soil, possessed of American citizenship, have be come Americanized, the racial strains are undiluted.
It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity.
The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.
General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Armys Western Defense Command
75 years later and we seem to have people of a similar mind running the show again.
The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on American soil, possessed of American citizenship, have be come Americanized, the racial strains are undiluted.
It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity.
The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.
General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Armys Western Defense Command
75 years later and we seem to have people of a similar mind running the show again.
PaulMB
pfm Member
I expect the General wanted to be sure nobody would blame him for underestimating the danger if anything DID happen. One also has to understand the state of paranoia in the US after Pearl Harbor. The Japs had just killed 2,400 Americans, wounded over 1,000 and sunk or damaged 18 ships including 5 battleships in a "peacetime" attack. It was not unthinkable they could attack the West Coast.
And the Brits interned people of Italian and German descent, in some cases even German Jews who had fled from Germany.
And the Brits interned people of Italian and German descent, in some cases even German Jews who had fled from Germany.
dan m
pfm Member
The documentary on Lange, "Grab a hunk of lightning," is excellent, and covers her mission to photograph these camps. http://grabahunkoflightning.com/
Looking through the photographs I could not help but notice that the individuals were bet fed and better clothed than the individuals found in the "Concentration" camps in Poland and Germany in the second World War. Moreover they looked as though they were better treated than those poor individuals captured by the Japanese in the second World War.
PaulMB
pfm Member
Well of course! I don't think there was ever any serious question that the Japanese were ill-treated. No possible comparison with the German concentration camps or the Japanese POW camps.
The real issue was that 100% American citizens, with in principle the same rights as any other Americans, were deprived of their freedom because of their Japanese ancestry.
Easy to judge from the comfort of your chair so many years after the event and point a moralistic finger at the perceived shortcomings of people who had no antecedents or experience to judge what they should or should not do in the circumstances. They had experienced Pearl Harbor and were still coming to terms with that. Gt Britain as it was then did the same because there were people living in the country who wanted Hitler to win. What should the Government have done in the circumstances? At least whilst these American citizens were incarcerated they were safe from the mindless thuggery of less informed individuals who harassed and made difficult the lives of innocent people. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote we have incidences of this sort of behavior from morons singling out Polish and Eastern European citizens.
davidsrsb
pfm Member
Some of the Axis camp commanding officers were executed after the war and many guards ended up serving long prison sentences
PaulMB
pfm Member
That's nothing. My grandfather went as a volunteer in the Italian army in WWI, then was deprived of his civil rights in 1938 because he was a Jew, and fled to flee to New York. Many other Italian (but you can substitute almost any other European nationality) Jews were less lucky.
I think it is pointless, today, to pass moral judgement. What the Americans did to the Japs after Pearl Harbour was not very nice, but the circumstances and the mood were what they were. For a while there was a very real and widespread fear of an actual Japanese landing or attack on the West Coast of the US. Understandable.