Japanese War Camps

In many times throughout history groups of people have been discriminated against based on race or religion. These people receive inferior rights because of the discrimination. In some cases they do not get citizenship, in others they are segregated from others, and physically harmed. Two groups of people that faced discrimination near World War II (WWII) were the Jewish people and Japanese Americans. Both groups faced very different types of discrimination by different oppressors with different motives yet their treatment was very similar and many events paralleled each other. The treatment of Japanese in WWII internment camps was as harsh as the Holocaust's treatment of the Jewish people.

The Second World War was an international event which drastically impacted the world as a whole. With the war came a new found sense of mistrust throughout society. American and Canadian communities were divided due to the fear of espionage and sabotage, forms of spying which could help aid the enemy in war. This division promoted distrust, discrimination and violence toward Japanese immigrants and their children. To offset these fears resulting from war, Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadian citizens were forced into internment camps, resulting in a heightened sense of tension upon arrival home and finally the compensations of both US and Canadian governments

Between 1942 and 1945, thousands of Japanese Americans, regardless of United States citizenship status, received orders to evacuate their homes and businesses. Sparked by rising fear amongst the American people after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a Naval base in Hawaii, the U.S. government relocated Japanese Americans to remote areas on the West Coast and in the south, isolating them in internment camps. With no actual evidence supporting the creation of internment camps, the U.S. interned Japanese Americans because of Japanese involvement in Pearl Harbor resulting in a rise of anti-Japanese paranoia sparked by the economic success of Japanese Americans, increased fear and prejudice within the United States government and amongst citizens,

Imagine being taken out of you home to place of the unknown. There is a lot of chaos and horror. You don’t know who the trust. The government is coming to your neighborhoods and taking you and your family to internment camps just because the government does not trust anyone of your ethnicity. That sounds horrible, right? Well, during World War 2 the United States of America sent Japanese- Americans to internment camps because the government could not trust people of the Japanese decent. They were told that the Japanese- Americans will tell the enemy, Japan, all of secrets about war, that America will do to defeat the Japanese. But, by sending these innocent Americans to these camps is just unjustified, cruel and horrible. This essay will talk about why sending these people to these internment camps were dreadful and unacceptable.

Japanese soldiers are widely remembered as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation and neglect. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water.

How would the government feel if they were forced to go to internment camps from their home?

The topic that has been chosen for the term paper in the pro seminar course is Japanese Internment Camps. During World War II, a significant number of American citizens of Japanese descent were forced into American internment camps, strictly because of their ethnic background. Having committed no crime, the Japanese forced into the internment camps were treated similarly to that of Japanese prisoners of war that had been captured by the Allies. The forced relocation and eventual internment of Japanese Americans was brought about by the event that occurred on December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941 began as any typical Sunday on the Hawaiian Islands. Then at 7:55 am, the fateful Sunday on the island of Oahu would be forever remembered in the history books. At 7:55 am, three hundred and fifty three Japanese planes that were launched from Japan’s six biggest and best aircraft carriers, located only two hundred miles off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands, bombed the U.S. Naval Base. The attack by the Japanese was a complete surprise to everyone, and as a result American casualties were heavy. After the attack, fifteen American ships had been sunk including four battleships. In addition, one American ship was capsized, and one had run aground. Also, one hundred and eighty eight American planes were destroyed, and nearly two thousand four hundred men lost their lives. Prior to September 11, 2001, the attack on Pearl Harbor was the worst attack on U.S. soil

Placing the Japanese In a camp like no other isn’t a bright idea. Especially when they were not apart of the Japanese who had bombed pearl harbor. The Japanese who had thought they would be protected, unfortunately it turned out to be something the Japanese wouldn’t think of being safe.

Beating had long been an acceptable and routine method of discipline within the Japanese Army. Soldiers could strike subordinates with no questions asked and no explanation warranted. The slightest distinction between ranks was of critical importance because it meant the difference between who could inflict blows, and who could expect to receive them. This sort of institutionalized brutality had a tendency to work its way down the ranks to the lowliest private. One can imagine what would happen when an enlisted man, hardened by this psychology of top-down violence, found himself suddenly thrown into a foreign and not altogether distasteful situation in which he was the superior, in charge of a group of helpless prisoners. For some, the temptation to beat proved irresistible. For others, beating was only the beginning." (Hampton 91-92)

There were many aspects to the imprisonment of the Japanese-Americans such as their lives before entering the camps. For most, the Japanese way of life was very similar to the Americans. They hung out with friends and went to school like normal kids. That all changed when Executive Order 9066 was signed. The most significant reason during WW2 for Japanese internment is social/racial attitudes about Japanese and Japanese Americans. One example of this was that

The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was unexpected. The United States suffered heavy losses in the war. This unintended war finally caused American fought back towards Japan. Many Japanese-Americans were being held in detention in a state of intense military preparedness. They were suspected of passing information to the Japanese army or threatening American national security. Many of them were sent to concentration camps without trial or conviction. This measure was disrespectful to Japanese-American human rights.

Prisoners of war had an especially rough life during and after their time imprisoned. Hillenbrand writes that during that time, corporal punishment was very common for Japanese soldiers. Because of this, she explains, beatings were “inescapable.” The frustrations held by the Japanese soldiers would then be transferred to their prisoners, which Hillenbrand says is called “transfer of oppression by Japanese historians. Hillenbrand also makes the claim that some guards, “intoxicated by absolute power and indoctrinated in racism and disgust for POWs,” became sadists - people who derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain or humiliation on others. Hillenbrand states POWs were beaten, starved, isolated, humiliated, and murdered. The sadism found in Japanese soldiers left POWs with a lifetime of nightmares and terror, if they somehow managed to

Moreover, the Japanese’s treatment of prisoners affected how Americans saw them. The Americans believed the Japanese were brutal human beings. The Americans saw them as that because during the Bataan Death March, if you stopped marching, the Japanese would kill you with a bayonet or rifle. Then, if you tried to help someone who fell, you would get beaten or stabbed. Also for a sport, Japanese soldiers would fracture sculls with rifle butts. Mostly, the prisoners would receive almost to no food or water and they were forced to walk 65

No one is more vulnerable during wartime than prisoners of war (POW 's). They are at the mercy of an enemy who they had been trying to kill and defeat up until the moment of their capture. During previous wars, this rather precarious situation was handled with a certain amount of professionalism and dignity on the part of captors. The two world wars in Europe are cases in which POW 's were given a fair amount of food, clothing, and the ability to write and receive letters in most cases. However, the war in the Pacific involving the United States and the Japanese involved a great deal of abuse and substandard treatment of POW 's resulting in a death rate of about 40% compared to only 1% in the European theater. The Soviet Union also did

During world war two, countries on both sides committed war crimes that shocked both the people involved, and the globe. From 1937 through to 1945, the Japanese justified their treatment of the Australian prisoners of war at the Burma railway with three things. The Japanese believed that their bushido code allowed them to treat the Australian this way, their ethics was one of complete brutality and hardship, and the Japanese soldiers were being fed false propaganda that showed a dehumanized view of the Australians. These three statements demonstrate that the Japanese atrocities committed at Burma, were, in the eyes of the Japanese, fair and just.