The existence of internment camps in the United States is often overlooked, especially due to the fact that what is most typically remembered about World War II is the sheer terror of the concentration camps where the Germans tortured and killed millions of Jews. Although there were never concentration camps in the United States that carried out such abhorrent acts and the attempted ethnic cleansing and complete extermination of an entire peoples, there certainly were internment camps in the United States during both World War I and World War II.
World War I began in 1914, however the United States did not become involved until 1917. The so-called Great War was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand; however, it essentially reached the extent that it did due to a system of European alliances. The interception of the Zimmerman Telegram more or less led to Wilson’s willingness to break American neutrality and declare war on Germany, as the German promise to aid Mexico in regaining territory lost to America in return for support was considered a direct threat to American sovereignty. Wilson entered the war on the premise to “make the world safe for democracy,” even though it can be argued that he directly contradicted this notion. Wilson created the Committee of Public Information which essentially served as a propaganda machine that promoted “patriotism,” while also funding movies titled “The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin and The Prussian Curse” in efforts to shape a public opinion that considered Germans as a dark, scary, and autocratic, equating them to the “Huns”.
Propaganda posters wrote “Beat back the Huns with liberty bonds”; this attempt to instill a sense of patriotism in Americans also inherently instilled feelings of hate and distrust for German American citizens. Wilson claimed,"Any man who carries a hyphen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready" (source 5).
A significant amount of propaganda was used to generate anti-German sentiment during World War I. However, it is not widely known that the United States also made use of internment camps for people deemed as “enemy aliens” in 1917. Wilson utilized the Enemy Alien Act of 1798 to place restrictions on German American citizens. According to NPR (source 5), 8 million out of the 92 million United States citizens in 1910 were German; the German language was even taught in 25% of American schools in 1915. However, propaganda and anti-immigrant sentiment completely refigured public opinion in regard to Germans. Many first- and second-generation Germans living in America who were now considered “enemy aliens” were being monitored by the government. Although the United States did not turn to a policy of mass internment during World War I, there were internment camps for Germans- Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, Fort McPherson in Georgia, and Fort Douglas in Utah. Over 4000 “aliens” were arrested in the United States during World War II under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, for charges including “muttering pro-German statements in public to publishing German-American newspapers endorsing the German war effort” (source 6). Fort Oglethorpe, the largest of the three internment camps, reported 3,600 internees in 1919, consisting of civilian enemy aliens, crews of German naval ships, and crews of German cargo and luxury passenger liners in American waters.
Life in Fort Oglethorpe was humane, and prisoners were treated relatively well. It was divided into Camps A, B, and C. Camp A, referred to as the "millionaire’s camp," housed internees who funded their own care, and Camp C was used as punishment for attempted escapees or internees who created unrest within the camp; these prisoners received half rations while in Camp C. The letters written by the internees were monitored, and there were limitations that allowed internees to send only two letters per month and one card per week. Movies were shown twice a week, and internees were able to engage in a number of activities including sports, arts and crafts, and gardening. The prisoners also were able to create a literary magazine titled the “Orgelsdorfer Eulenspiegel” as well as a “university” where they taught one another languages and sciences. The magazine consisted of ten editions, printed from October 1918 and May 1919 (source 2). Many of the Germans imprisoned in Fort Oglethorpe were scholars, and they were able to express their intellectuality through the literary magazine. Fort Oglethorpe was not immune to the Spanish Influenza, and an outbreak killed 46 of the prisoners. Nevertheless, internees were not subject to inhumane treatment while interned, besides the fact that the reason for their internment in the first place was likely unjust in most cases. Although the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I in June of 1919, repatriation of internees began in May of 1919 and did not conclude until the barracks closed in June of 1920 (source 6).
World War II, on the other hand, proved to be significantly more intensive in the handling of “enemy aliens”. United States' involvement in World War II had two fronts; the European front and the Pacific front. The Japanese attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, resulting in Franklin Roosevelt to formally declare war on Japan. Within 48 hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI began investigating and arresting thousands of Japanese men. Similar to World War I, the government distributed propaganda that depicted the Japanese as savage, brutal, and beast-like. Roosevelt began to conduct loyalty tests that many Japanese were forced to take in efforts to prove their loyalty to America. General John Dewitt classified the Japanese and Japanese Americans as “an enemy race”.
In February of 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order forcing the relocation of all American citizens of Japanese ancestry. This mass incarceration of an entire peoples differs significantly from the very few internment camps created for German “enemy aliens” in the United States during World War I. This time, the United States did not even attempt to find a reason for forcibly displacing people into internment camps; instead, every person on American soil of Japanese descent was considered to be a threat to national security. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 was justified as a "military necessity"
to protect against domestic espionage and sabotage” (source 2). Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, many of whom had been American citizens for generations, were forced to evacuate their homes, sell off their property and businesses, and were relocated to ten internment camps. Many first had to reside in temporary detention centers in venues such as fairgrounds or racetracks, where conditions were poor and unorganized. The ten internment camps were located in isolation in the interiors of Idaho, Wyoming, California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Arkansas. These “War Location Centers” housed the Japanese in less than ideal conditions, as twenty-five people were often cramped into housing quarters meant for four. The barracks were hastily built and lacked proper plumbing. The Tule Lake Segregation Center was a camp reserved for Japanese Americans who were actually considered “politically dangerous” (source 4).
Although the use of Japanese internment camps were extremely unjust, many of them at least provided schooling, relatively decent food rations, and freedoms to work, take part in recreational activities, and practice religion. Each camp had police departments, hospitals, and other job opportunities. However, the concept of Americanization was often required in the schooling of children in these internment camps. Life in internment camps was inevitably
monotonous, however many Japanese internees participated in sports including baseball and football, as well as contributed to writing the newspaper each camp published. Most of the internees worked, but did not receive adequate wages, especially relative to their former life. According to source 4, internee teachers at Heart Mountain Relocation Center earned $228 per year, whereas Caucasian teachers who came to teach at the camps earned $2000 per year.
The American Yawp (source 7) cites the experience of Aiko Herzig-Yoshinga, a second-generation Japanese American, who describes her experience at the internment camp Manzanar. Herzig-Yoshinga described hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and being shocked by the event. She was also worried about her parents, as they were immigrants and therefore aliens, and could not become naturalized American citizens. Herzig-Yoshinga believed that since she was born in America, she was a citizen with rights protected under the Constitution. However, she was still forcibly removed and taken by bus to Manzanar, an internment camp in a desolate area plagued by heat and dust storms. She describes the hot summers and cold winters, the unavailability space and privacy, as well the sometimes insufficient amounts of food and water. The closed quarters and lack of privacy "did a lot of damage in camps" (source 7). Although the internees in America certainly did not face conditions as extreme as those suffering in German death camps, they were still stripped of basic civil liberties that were supposedly "guaranteed" to them.
Many Japanese Americans were imprisoned for up to four years. In December 1944, Roosevelt rescinded the executive order to relocate Americans of Japanese ancestry, and these relocated peoples were allowed to return to the places the United States government forcibly removed them from. However, many returned to a shell of their old lives, having been stripped of their homes and most of their possessions. The Japanese internment camps in World War II were detrimental to the lives of thousands, simply as a result of their heritage. This begs the question- why were German-Americans not regarded in the same way during World War II? Although the forced removal and relocation to internment camps is undoubtedly unjust, why did Japanese Americans face mass incarceration in the United States during World War II, as if the only war being fought was on the Pacific front? Additionally, relinquishing Germans to internment camps during World War I was undeniably unjust however, it was on a much lesser scale- it was certainly not the mass incarceration of an entire group. America was not only at war with Japan during World War II; the United States were at war with Germany as well. Yet only the Japanese were forcibly relocated during World War II. Those of Asian descent have been marginalized by the United States on countless occasions; the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the National Origins Act (1924), World War II internment camps… this type of exclusion is inherently despicable, regardless of whether or not it is considered “a wartime necessity”.
Sources Cited:
1) “Children of the Camps | INTERNMENT HISTORY.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 1999, www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/.
2) Cross, Jeanne, and Ann Myers. Orgelsdorfer Eulenspiegel and the German Internee Experience at Fort Oglethorpe, 1917-19. www.worldwar1centennial.org/images/Georgia_images/pdf/ghq/GHQ%20-%20Cross%20_%20Myers%20-%20Orgelsdorfer%20Eulenspiegel%20and%20the%20German%20Internee%20Experience%20at%20Fort%20Oglethrope,%201917-19.pdf.
3) Neumann, Caryn E. Committee on Public Information, www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1179/committee-on-public-information.
4) “Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps.” Home and Family | DPLA, dp.la/exhibitions/japanese-internment/home-family/family.
5) Siegel, Robert, and Art Silverman. “During World War I, U.S. Government Propaganda Erased German Culture.” NPR, NPR, 7 Apr. 2017, www.npr.org/2017/04/07/523044253/during-world-war-i-u-s-government-propaganda-erased-german-culture.
6) Yockelson, Mitchel. The War Department: Keeper of Our Nation's Enemy Aliens during World War I, 1998, net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/yockel.htm.
7) “Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga on Japanese Internment.” The American Yawp Reader, 1994, www.americanyawp.com/reader/24-world-war-ii/aiko-herzig-yoshinaga-on-japanese-internment-1942-1994/.
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