It’s little known that concentration camps existed also on the United States soil and Americans conducted real ‘democratic holocaust’ during WWII. Officially those camps were called ‘War Relocation Centers’ constructed for 120 thousand people of Japanese ancestry. Remarkable that 62% of these people had US citizenship! I was surprised to find out that Americans were not afraid to use Hitler’s methods.
On the morning of December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbour was attacked which led to the USA’s entry into World War II. But that’s not it – anti-Japanese campaign was conducted all over the United States which resulted in the most blatant human rights violation in American history!
After the bombing of Pearl Harbour according to the ‘Alien Enemies Act’,Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527 were issued declaring all of Germans, Italians and Japanese‘enemy aliens.’
Internment was authorized by Franklin D. Roosevelt who signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19th 1942. Military commanders could designate‘exclusion zones’ – specific areas from which any person can be excluded.
It was decided to move all Japanese Americans from the entire West Coast.
Despite considering many internment possibilities, it was decided to choose Hitler’s method - concentration camps.
If a person was even 1/16 Japanese it was enough to move him to internment camp. Colonel Karl Bendetsen from Western Command once said:
I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp.
There’s an excerpt from the testimony of General John L. DeWitt, the head of this Democratic holocaust, in front of the US Congress:
A Jap’s a Jap. I don’t want any of them here. They are a dangerous element. There’s no way to determine their loyalty… It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty… But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.
Reading this, I’m not surprised anymore why Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War Relocation Authority (WRA) opened 10 camps in 7 states within 9 months and transferred over 100 thousands of Japanese Americans there from ‘assembly centers.’ The majority of these camps were located on the territory of Indian Reservations.
Over 120,000 Japanese Americans or immigrants from Japan were evicted from their homes in California, western Oregon and Washington and southern Arizona. It was the biggest forced relocation in USA history.
According to WRA report:
Internees were housed in tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.
Camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed soldiers. Sometimes people trying to leave a camp territory were shot.
Civil rights of Japanese were severely restricted: for example, it was forbidden to drive a car or even to have one.
After the war was over, people came home but the majority of houses were demolished or vandalized…
Only in 1976 President Gerald Ford proclaimed that internment was“wrong.” In 1988 Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which provided a 20 thousand dollar compensation for every surviving internee (totaling 1.2 billion dollars). On September 27, 1992, 400 million dollars were added to this sum.