The dark history behind Utah’s Topaz camp
By Samantha Shirley
- Mon, 01/25/2010 - 22:34
Two hours south of Provo near the town of Delta is a 42-block plot that once housed as many as 8,130 Japanese internees during World War II.
The 19,800-acre site of the Topaz Internment Camp is now barren, but the cement foundations of many of the buildings can still be seen, along with the occasional tea cup, lipstick tube or pile of nails.
The camp, originally called the Central Utah Relocation Center, was open from 1932-1945. U.S. Citizens of Japanese descent were forced to relocate to the camp, mostly from the San Francisco Bay area.
The Japanese people at the camp were born both in the United States and in Japan, but many had been in the country for generations and two-thirds of the internees were American citizens.
Jane Beckwith, a Delta resident and driving force behind preserving the camp, said many of the people at the camp had lost everything. Their bank accounts were frozen, and many came with almost nothing.
The internment camp is on a huge expanse of flat land that was once the bottom of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. The desert area can get both very cold and very hot, and the wind blows mercilessly. The ground is light clay.
“When it gets wet it’s sticky like crazy,” Beckwith said.
In an effort to make the area more livable, small rocks were hauled in and placed on the ground, making it easier to walk on than the clay. Many used larger rocks to form rock gardens and meticulously-placed walkways.
The internees also created ponds and ornamental gardens in an effort to make the camp their home and try to find joy and peace in a very difficult situation.
Residences in Topaz fit up to 20 people. Thirty-four blocks of the camp were for residences, with 12 barracks each, plus a recreation hall and a laundry building with bathroom, shower and toilet facilities. There was no heat or air conditioning and Beckwith said the residences didn’t get screens on the windows for more than a year.
According to the National Park Service Web site, the internment camp was well guarded, with sentry posts at each entrance, seven watch towers, a fence around the perimeter and a military police compound.
The government spent 43 cents per day on each person in the camp and the food they were served was sub-par. Beckwith said they felt as if they were being fed liver and tripe.
The internees cared for vegetable gardens as well, but climate and soil conditions made it difficult for plants to grow. The government had hoped to make the camp self-sufficient through the use of gardens, but it never happened.
“The gardens, they’re not great … but people were trying to find some sort of beauty in a harsh environment,” Beckwith said.
Topaz has not always been well-known, but it became a National Historic landmark in 2007 with a lot of help and a grant from the National Park Service, Beckwith said.
Even though Japanese Americans were targeted during World War II, many still continued with a strong love for the United States. Many young Japanese men fought for America in the war, and a picture of a plaque at the Topaz site shows mothers with their sons:
“Gold star mothers, incarcerated behind barbed wire, welcome home their U.S. veteran sons – while at the same time, mourn for sons lost, fighting for America.”
The cause for the internment camps across America is not simple. Beckwith said Japanese people weren’t brought to internment camps just because of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
“The U.S. had been actively and covertly fostering a type of racism against the Japanese,” Beckwith said. “I don’t think America can ever afford to do that again.”
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