Random History Thread

I'm watching the second season of the TV show "The Terror". It's set in 1942 on Terminal Island in California and main characters are Japanese-Americans who end up in internment camps after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.

My question is: did the American authorities know about the Nazi concentration camps in Europe when they came up with their own camps?
 
Night Prowler said:
I'm watching the second season of the TV show "The Terror". It's set in 1942 on Terminal Island in California and main characters are Japanese-Americans who end up in internment camps after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.

My question is: did the American authorities know about the Nazi concentration camps in Europe when they came up with their own camps?
Click to expand...
Did they need to know? After all Hitler said his inspiration for his camps and the Holocaust was how the U.S nearly exterminated the Native Americans. Also, I saw/read somewhere (I can look it up if need be), that the white farmers used the paranoia in their favor to steal the farmland from the Japanese farmers. Can't remember if they told on their neighbors the same way Germans ratted out Jews, but I do know for sure that once the government locked them up, they gave the land to other farmers for "safe keeping" on a temporary basis. Truth was, once they were released they didn't get their farms back.
 
Night Prowler said:
My question is: did the American authorities know about the Nazi concentration camps in Europe when they came up with their own camps?
Click to expand...
Yes, absolutely. Remember that concentration camps and extermination camps are different things. Concentration camps were set up several times previously, including to intern German and Italians in the USA and Canada during WW1. Japanese internment was a far more intense and comprehensive program than WW1 internment, mind you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top