MORE ON THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT AND RELATED MATTERS: Reader Dominic Anghelone sends a bunch of links. Here’s one on the internment of Italians in Britain (actually, this page is about Italians from Scotland) during World War II, some of whom were sent to the Isle of Man and some of whom were sent to Canada, some perishing when their ship was torpedoed by a U-Boat.
There’s also this link to a book about the internment of Italian-Canadians, and this link to a page on forced labor and internment of Ukrainian-Canadians.
Meanwhile, here’s a page on the internment of Germans and Austro-Hungarians in World War One. (Note, however, that these were, for example, German citizens, though sometimes long-term residents, not simply Americans of German descent.)
Finally, here’s a link to a statement by Senator Russ Feingold:
Mr. Chairman, as you know, during World War II, the United States fought the spread of Nazism and fascism. Nazi Germany was engaged in the persecution and genocide of Jews and certain other groups. By the end of the war, six million Jews had perished at the hands of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, while we were at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the United States treated as suspect the Japanese American, German American, and Italian American communities, depriving them of fundamental rights of liberty and due process.
As a nation, we have been slow to study and to acknowledge this conduct. Most Americans are now aware of the U.S. government’s treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Through the work of a commission created by Congress in 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, this disgraceful episode in American history finally received the official acknowledgment and condemnation it deserved.
Thus far, there has not been sufficient study of the injustices suffered by German Americans, Italian Americans and other Americans of European descent during World War II. The U.S. government limited their travel, imposed curfews, and seized their personal property. Thousands were selectively interned in camps – often separated from other members of their family and living in miserable conditions. Approximately 11,000 ethnic Germans living in the United States, 3,200 ethnic Italians, and scores of ethnic Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians, and other European Americans were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps. Hundreds were interned for up to three years even after the war had ended. Many of these families, including American children, were later shipped back to war-torn Europe in exchange for Americans held there, and suffered terribly.
In addition, there has been no justice for European Latin Americans – including German and Austrian Jews – who were repatriated or deported to hostile, war-torn European Axis powers, often as part of an exchange for Americans being held in those countries.
And here’s a link to Feingold’s bill from the last Congress, the Wartime Treatment Study Act, that would have required, well, study of what went on along these lines.
Interesting stuff, and touching on events that I was, at best, only vaguely aware of. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of everything in these linked pages, either, though as far as I know they’re accurate.