US Internment Camps

I was not going to contribute to this thread but I just don't understand the American breast beating about internment.

FDR was damned if he interned and damned if he didn't.

I would have done what he did.

For any nation it is worrying that recent immigrants have potentially two loyalties - one to their new country and one to the their country of berth (or religion).

We are struggling with this problem at the moment.

You may have read of the London bombings and several failed attempts mostly by children of parents who came to this country from the Indian sub-Continent.

What is nearly always the case is that the parents are perfectly law-abiding and usually aghast at what has happened.

If these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been on the scale of WW2, for the sake of safety I would have supported internment.

 

I've run out of likes....And we must not forget...Internment in Northern Ireland..We've all been there. Taking one internment/concentration...call it what you will...And then defending it in context of another will get no one anywhere. In my view...FDR interrned folk...so did we over here...Winston sent many to our own little island of the Isle of Man. We don't today and never will think of it as a concentration camp, but we will support what he did for internment policy whilst fighting a war for survival. Many of those we interned as indeed in later years in Northern Ireland, were guilty of nothing. But then we did not go on to torture or kill them as Jugs points out. Bringing up Concentration camps the first time in this debate was meant to cause rancour. It has..Jugs has a point if even on that and not wanting to state such. So I will..It was mentioned to overheat the debate here...Success then.

 

The US Internment Camps Debate is now here as a seperate thread. Keep it civil and on topic or off to the Stump it will go. (and you all know what comes next)

 

I'll be happy to call them Internment Camps if that is the point of dispute, but it doesn't change anything. These Japanese-Americans (and the Italian and German Americans as well) were citizens whose rights as free men and women were ignored.

As for Jewish immigration, congress passed something called the Wagner-Rogers Bill (google it) which would have allowed 20,000 Jewish refugee children into the country, and Roosevelt took no action on that. In effect, he overrode congress and refused to save these children. He did nothing to increase this immigration as Nazi's began rounding up and exporting these people to the camps.

Roosevelt may be an Icon to many people, but he had his dark side.

 

Dark Side, or perhaps Practical side. Britain had internment camps for enemy civillians, as did Japan and I suspect Germany. It does not help to clear the waters considering the use of "Quizling's" by Germany.

Honest Abe, re-guarded as America's finest President did much that would never pass scrutiny today to save the Union, and as he said himself, if he could have ended the rebellion and reclaimed the South without freeing a single slave, he would have done so in an instant and without qualms.

I agree the Japanese-American internment camps were a dark moment in our collective history, we have had many and no doubt have more to come, but these people, as well as those German/Italian internees were never sent there to die.

This is the most important issue for both us (who sent them) and them (who were sent).

 

The thing you are missing is that it was a reflection of the times and the attitudes of the US as a whole. We can look back on it with 72 years of domestic maturity and condemn it; but what we can't do is put ourselves in that same situation.
There is absolutly nothing to say that internment "didn't" prevent a 5th column action by Nisei and Isei "sleepers"; we don't know , because they weren't given the chance. Just like after 9/11 we'll never know how effective increased security was because Al Quaeda wasn't given another chance.

Segregation in the US was very much alive and well in 1941 so the rounding up of "Aliens", especially those from a nation who had just attacked us, wasn't seen with the same jaundice view (no pun intended).

 

Not really. As I pointed out, congress (certainly with the backing of their constituents) passed an act to allow Jewish children in over and above the quota - Roosevelt killed it. It isn't a matter of "times and attitudes" in the general populace as much as it's a reflection of Roosevelt's attitudes. And keep in mind that these Japanese Internment camps were NOT authorized by Congress. They were established by an executive order over the heads of congress. Roosevelt created them on his own.

I'm old enough that my parents and grandparents were of that time. These were blue collar people and they had no prejudices against Jews or Asians.

 

What's your point? You have created a circular defense.........meaning that any point of reason someone makes you are going to contradict. What in the name of little green apples makes you think that any of this was done purly out of spite?
Nobody was letting Jews migrate into their country, over the quota, for fear of creating a more tense situation with Germany.
The other Jewish aspect is that no one knew for sure how bad things were for the Jews in Europe and the extent they were being persecuted so there was no sense of dire urgency.
Was that thinking a mistake? ....70 odd years later we should have done something. Has the US learned a lesson from this...you bet, look at the immigration concessions we have made for the Hmong and other Southeast Asians.

For the last time: CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND DEATH CAMPS ARE NOT THE SAME AS INTERNMENT CAMPS. I beseach you, to not make that comparison again;it is insulting and inflammatory and serves no genuine purpose.

 

As much as I love to defend my own when someone across the pond has a go...Not very often I know..

Why should America be any different in its attitudes to perceived enemy aliens than any other democracy at the time..?



http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/famhist/genealgy/intern.htm

http://theconversation.edu.au/when-ethnicity-counts-civilian-internment-in-australia-during-ww2-3273

http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/canadianhistory/camps/internment1.html

http://webspace.webring.com/people/es/somesprisonersnz/

 

Except for the US congress with the Wagner-Rogers Bill that authorized 20,000 children to come in over and above the immigration quota. Roosevelt refused to implement it. It's the same with interment camps (see - I called them internment camps), which were authorized under Roosevelt's executive order, not by congress.

The Germans had no issue with allowing these children out, or anyone else. They just wanted them gone. The Japanese took in thousands of Jews along with the Swedes and others; and we tried as well but Roosevelt thwarted those attempts.

This isn't an opinion, it's history.

 

I think we should see what the American Jewish Historical society has to say on history. They surely should know.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sosua1.html

 

Yeah, read up on it. Roosevelt wanted the Jews sent off to Madagascar, among other places.

Where did that idea come from? Oops - from the Nazi party! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan

 

I could just post all the relevant sections. But it would be better for all here to see what they have written into history. Visit the site and search the archive. Its full of information on this area.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/evian.html

 

Kodiak, according to Wiki the Bill you cite was Rejected By Congress in Feb. 1939.

Not by FDR.

Facts can be harsh mistress sometimes.

 

I think it was Paul de Lagarde in 1885 actually KB.

 

Regardless of what a country will allow the recieving country needs to be able to accomodate them. Where were these 20,000 children going to go? in 1939 the US was still having a hard time figuring out how to take care of it's own citizens, the last thing they needed were 20,000 eastern european waifs.

The long and the short of it is that the US just didn't have any room or resources to accomodate immigration over the established quota. Wether this decision was made unilaterally or through an act of congress doesn't matter; it was a good decision at the time considering what was on the horizon.

 

OK, you yanks have got me...hook line and sinkered,,,,i should be washing the dogs...In hindsight, as in many decisions at the time...And today I'm sure of it, the rules should have just been relaxed and each case taken on an individual basis...Case as in amounts turning up...I know even now the admin would be ridiculous, but admin should not be the problem even if it is more so today than in yesteryear. What I have a problem understanding is laying the blame on FDR's shoulders. Yes allow them in...but to blame one man for this seems daft.

Found this site...Your children have debated this before us chaps...I was particularly interested in the orginisations that objected...Which one did FDR belong to then?

http://www.ailf.org/teach/lessonplans/h4_wagnerrogers.pdf

 

Where does it say Roosevelt wanted to send the European Jew to Madagascar? This is a great example of the need to cite sources.

 

Google the Evian-les-Bains conference on refugees. Roosevelt's suggestion was to export them to Madagascar and South America.

 

All I am seeing is that he was looking for a way to alleviate the problem with the least impact on US social and job programs. Another reason less Jews immigrated to the US was because it was easier for them to walk to Belgium, and the Netherlands than it was for them to swim to America.

this is from the same site:

And further I don't see anything where it say Roosevelt was in attendence let alone saying they should be shipped to Madegascar:

And telling someone to "Google" is not the same as citing a source