Civilian Detention Camps

by Carl Jensen

"It is extremely easy for us to say that the German people, for instance, even under the threat of physical violence, shouldn’t have allowed their government to do what it did. But we of the United States, under no intimidating threats and with a long history of individual freedom, did not stop this forced evacuation which took place over a number of months and subjected many thousands of local citizens not only to bewilderment and misery of barren, crowded barracks but to large, permanent losses in the form of hard earned businesses and properties; sudden amputation of plans and hopes; disillusionment about their citizenship in America. If we ask ourselves why we did not stop it, and listen to the reasons we start to put forth, perhaps we may understand why similar questions asked Germans about ‘stopping Hitler’ are in reality too vague and inadequate to be helpful."

"Knowing what those camps meant to people caught up in the event of the 1940’s, knowing the shame that afflicts the American people as we look back on the incarceration and dislocation of a people because of their race, [or political beliefs], we can only feel repugnance and fear at the fact that today we have locations available for another round-up [1970’s and again in 1999] and that we live under a law which would permit another mass detention of people without any proof that they had committed any illegal actions."
Source: Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, Prohibiting Detention Camps, March 18, 1971, Pg. 93.

U.S. Detention Camps During WW II

The socialist experiment with detention camps began during the era of 1931 – 1948 in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Stalin exterminated 7 – 10 million people in civilian detention camps from 1931 – 1933, and another 10 million between 1934 – 1939. Hitler opened Dachau on March 9, 1933, and Auschwitz in Poland in January, 1940. It has been determined that by the end of World War II as many as six million people died in Hitler’s detention camps.

On August 24, 1939, the FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover met with FDR to develop a detention camp program in the United States.Some people today will remember the detention camps which were setup in the United States immediately after President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and formally entered World War II. What many don’t realize is that the Japanese were not the only people who were forced to go to these camps. Germans, Italians, and Mexicans were also sent to these camps during WW II. It should be said that the camps in the United States were not the death camps which were so feared in Europe, yet these people were denied their Constitutional rights when the federal government forced them into the camps.

Immediately after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the government began discussions concerning what to do with aliens that were from countries that were now considered enemies of the United States. There was an immediate call to evacuate the Japanese from the west-coast states of California, Oregon, Washington and the state of Hawaii. Over the next two months, the public’s attitude toward the Japanese rapidly deteriorated. In February of 1942 the government began registering enemy aliens and large-scale "spot" raids were conducted to seek out potential dissidents and evidence of espionage. In the next four months the raids produced little in the way of proof that Japanese residents were plotting against the United States.

Due to the increasing anti-Japanese sentiment unemployment among the Japanese soared, reports of personal attacks grew, desperately needy were denied relief funds, and the Japanese were refused licenses to operate businesses. They were also subjected to heavy travel restrictions. By the middle of February 1942, it was decided to begin to evacuate all persons of Japanese lineage and all other aliens whose presence would be considered dangerous to the defense of the United States. It was estimated that 100,000 enemy aliens would be involved in the evacuation. (NOTE: to this day the United States government still looks upon this forced evacuation as a voluntary evacuation). It should be said that there were people in the government and the military that thought that these evacuations were wrong and should not be instituted, but their objections were ignored.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered the evacuations to begin. One month later on March 18, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102 which established the War Relocation Authority. It ordered the establishment of this agency in the Office of Emergency Management to manage the evacuation. The Authority quickly began planning the building of ten relocation camps that would house over 110,000 people.

The Quakers helped the Japanese in the days prior to their evacuation. They helped to pack the few possessions they were allowed to take with them. They also made arrangements to find storage facilities for their personal possessions which the Japanese left behind. The Quakers also assisted in selling businesses and homes which the Japanese were forced to leave behind, and they found ways to ensure that the Japanese would get their money. The Quakers even attempted to provide protection for properties which were not sold. Their assistance did not stop there. They continued to maintain contact with the detainees in the camps as a means of counteracting the demoralization and fear which overcame many of the detainees.

Two of these camps which received trainloads of evacuees were located in Arizona. One was the Colorado River Relocation Center, which housed 18,000 people at its peak, and operated from April 1942 – March 1946. The other was the Gila River Relocation Center that held 13,000 people, and it was in operation from May 1942 – February 1946.