Rare colour photographs of the captivity enjoyed by Japanese-Americans in WWII thanks to the tender hospitality of Uncle Sam have been causing much controversy amongst Japanese online, with many keen either to burnish their victimhood or praise the relatively humane nature of “the USA’s concentration camps.”
The newly published photos date back to WWII, when the land of the free was indiscriminately locking up those of its ethnic Japanese citizens it did not send off to die fighting on the European frontlines:
Some 110,000 Japanese-Americans, most of whom were American citizens, were forcibly imprisoned in a series of “internment” camps in desolate locations under military guard from 1942 onwards, on the basis that they were all possible spies. Canada also operated similar camps.
The US government issued a formal apology for their treatment in 1988, and has paid out over a billion dollars in reparations to its victims. Germans and Italians were not subject to similar imprisonment.
The photos, by Bill Manbo, are published in an anthology entitled “Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Internment in World War II.”
The topic arouses a certain amount of indignation amongst latter day Japanese, not that their own nation’s ghastly wartime treatment of non-Japanese in any way compares favourably:
“As expected of America!”
“The greatest human rights violation of the 20th century!”
“Actually some of them look quite happy.”
“Vivid kimono they had there, really nice to see colour photos like this.”
“Beautiful kimono! And good physiques on those wrestlers.”
“None of these people would have been able to afford kimono if they had stayed in Japan, most of them were just poor farmers there.”
“They are wearing them wrong anyway, more like yukata.”
“Why release them now? They are just trying to whitewash the camps as somehow being ‘humane.'”
“The real issue here is that they just let Germans go about their lives.”
“Looks more pleasant than contemporary Japan at any rate.”
“These aren’t Japanese, they are nikkei Japanese-Americans!”
“Even today Japanese-Americans are as anti-Japanese as Koreans.”
“Who cares about this stuff! Spread more pictures of them bombing us!”
“America is a military nation, not a Christian nation. You’re nothing th”
“This is just propaganda. Japanese should never forget they had all their property seized and after the war were subject to massive discrimination.”
“Go and learn about Unit 731 and lieutenant general Shiro Ishii.”
“And what’s wrong with trying to stop the spread of disease?”
“How Japan was treating its prisoners of war:”
“The 442nd was America’s greatest military unit ever and won more medals than any others!”
“Just looking at the wealth of the US at the time, you can really see why Japan was beaten.”
“Those who couldn’t stand having all their property taken and being locked up as enemy aliens could always go and fight on the front lines in Europe.”
“This kind of horrible treatment is a real issue. Japan was feeding and treating its captured enemy soldiers properly, they just thought the nori was black paper!”
“Japan’s US and European POWs were nothing but skin and bones when they were released…”
“You can’t compare POWs to civilians!”
“And most of these prisoners were American citizens!”
“Even Japanese, soldiers included, were starving at the time…”
“Of course, they just neglected to record the horrible conditions of these internees!”
“According to a book by one of the guys in the 442nd, the internees each were mandated to have a meat ration of at least 220g a day – Japan was fighting an ultra-wealthy nation which even gave its prisoners the equivalent of a steak at a family restaurant each day…”
“Seeing how differently they treated their Japanese citizens to the ones from Germany and Italy infuriates me, but compared to how the Nazis were treating their prisoners this is heaven.”
“Fancy those American brutes not setting up gas chambers for them!”
“Japan needs to set up these kinds of camps for its Korean citizens.”
“They treated Japanese internees humanely, whilst Japanese were making their foreign prisoners eat wood…”
“This is pure racism! Filthy Anglo-Saxon American brutes ought to grovel on the ground in apology to the Japanese!”
Damn, those are some fugly island monkeys in those photos.
50 years from now, I’m going to kick some middle eastern teen in the nuts and yell “NINE ELEVEN!”
“The greatest human rights violation of the 20th century!”
. . . . . . No words.
at the beginning , the U.S. citizens with ascendence from Japan were treated with decency, but that became worse with the time.
My Grandfather was a soldier back then when Japan invaded Philippines, he said that Japanesse in America at that was lucky because they are treated more fairly. In those soldiers that got captured we’re forced to their own grave.