[johnmflores]

Captions on photos - simply hover your cursor over the photo. Powerful stuff.

Dorothea Lange's Censored Photographs of FDR's Japanese Concentration Camps

---

Last edited by johnmflores; 12-09-2016 at 05:20 AM.

[AggieDad]

Thanks for the link. The photos and quotes are poignant, particularly so since I visited the Heart Mountain Camp and Museum in Wyoming two summers ago.

Heart Mountain was one of the internment camps for West Coast Japanese-Americans during World War II. While these people were told by the government they were in a “Relocation Center,” it was a concentration camp, pure and simple.

The two buildings in the first photo were the camp hospital; the second was the camp boiler room. They are the only buildings left standing at the camp. The hospital serviced over 11,000 people when the camp's population was at its peak. There is a museum exhibit that is excellent, giving a real feeling of what life was like for these people.

There were ten of these concentration camps located in the interior of the country away from the "West Coast Exclusion Zone" that held about 115,000 Japanese-Americans. Before it closed Heart Mountain peaked at a population of almost 11,000, making it Wyoming's third-largest city at the time.

Along with all the sad stories I read in the museum, there was one story of a Japanese farmer who sold his farm to his neighbor before going to Heart Mountain. After the war the farmer sold it back to him for exactly what he paid. A man of honor and compassion.

Heart Mountain Internment Camp Hospital



Heart Mountain Internment Camp Boiler Room (yes, the smoke stack really leans)

[MarkJerling]

That is certainly thought provoking.

[SpecialK]

"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. Army’s Western Defense Command

Strange days...

[H. Sapiens]

“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”

— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942

Hitler himself couldn't have said it much better.

[officiousbystander]

Brings to mind the Santayana quotation “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

[p38arover]

Great photos!

Regrettably, the term "concentration camps" has acquired a terrible meaning because of the camps run by the Nazis and the Japanese. I'm feel sure that the US did not treat the Japanese inmates in the same way (atrocities) - of course, I could be wrong.

---

Last edited by p38arover; 12-09-2016 at 02:03 AM.

[clackers]

Great photos!

Regrettably, the term "concentration camps" has acquired a terrible meaning because of the camps run by the Nazis and the Japanese. I'm feel sure that the US did not treat the Japanese inmates in the same way (atrocities) - of course, I could be wrong.

The pain was later acknowledged and compensation paid by the US.

Let's hope Japan does the same. Thousands died in their camps.

[p38arover]

Thanks Clackers. I didn't know about the compensation. It was a terrible time for them - just reading the story shows that.

[clackers]

Thanks Clackers. I didn't know about the compensation. It was a terrible time for them - just reading the story shows that.

President Reagan apologized for the error and more than a billion dollars was paid out.

[Not a Number]

Well this thread will probably get shut down for being "political"

President Reagan apologized for the error and more than a billion dollars was paid out.

Those payments amounted to $25,000 per family. Families lost much more than that in personal property, homes, farms and businesses alone.

I grew up in a Japneses-American community here in Los Angeles. Many of my friends parents and older siblings had been in the camps. Some of their fathers or brothers served in the 442nd Infantry Regiment. One of my friend's parents and older brother were put in one of the high security prisons and then shipped back to Japan. They were later allowed to re-enter the US in the 1950s. His father refused the reparation payment saying there is nothing that can be done to apologize for the treatment they received.

[p38arover]

I don't think it's political, more historical.

[FantasticMrFox]

Regrettably, the term "concentration camps" has acquired a terrible meaning because of the camps run by the Nazis and the Japanese. I'm feel sure that the US did not treat the Japanese inmates in the same way (atrocities) - of course, I could be wrong.

True. Interesting enough, concentration camps and their name were first used in Cuba in the 19th century, then by the British during Second Boer War (1899-1902). Over 26,000 Boers, mostly women and children, died in the British camps. The Nazis obviously took it to an entirely new level, thus the term is now almost exclusively used in the context of the Holocaust.

Well this thread will probably get shut down for being "political".

It's mostly historical, and there doesn't seem to be any disagreement on the subject, so I think we're pretty safe.

[johnmflores]

Well this thread will probably get shut down for being "political"

This is photography and visual storytelling at its most powerful and most thought-provoking. I would hope that the admins would recognize and respect that.

[clackers]

BTW, for compensation along American lines, Japan's parliament would need to act, since the courts will not:

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/pow-compensation/japan.php