Wednesday, 09 July 2008
Home arrow The Police State arrow Colorado internment camp may be restored
InVenice Poll
Do you feel like Local,State and Federal Agencys Care about You and your Family?
Main Menu
Home
My Tube
Local News
Clubs and Organizations
Election 2008
Grass Roots
911 investigations
The Police State
Florida News
Fun Facts :Things to Know
National News
World News
Music News
Forum
Weather
Soap Box
News Feeds
Swanny's Fun Room
Florida Facts: Things to Know
Web Links


Colorado internment camp may be restored E-mail
Written by Howard Pankratz   
Friday, 12 October 2007

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

 

The restoration and maintenance of Camp Amache, the internment camp in southeastern Colorado where 7,597 Japanese-Americans were forced to move during World War II, will be a primary topic during a National Park Service hearing Monday in Denver.

 

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

The Park Service is also expected to hear comments about the Heart Mountain internment camp near Cody, Wyo.

Camp Amache was the smallest of the 10 relocation centers while Heart Mountain saw almost 11,000 people there between August 1942 and November 1945.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Last December, Congress established a $38 million program of National Park Service grants to restore 10 camps across the United States that housed Japanese-Americans forced from the West Coast in the early 1940s .

Mary A. Bomar,  the director of the National Park Service, said a series of public hearings — to be held in Denver; Glendale, Ariz.; Salt Lake City; Seattle; Las Vegas; Los Angeles and Sacramento — will allow public input and give park service officials the opportunity to answer questions about the criteria that will guide the multi-million dollar program.

"The stories and struggles around national security and the protection of civil liberties associated with these confinement sites continues to resonate today," Bomar said. "This is a great opportunity for people across the country to provide their thoughts about this new program and what criteria should be used to evaluate future grant proposals."

In 1941, nearly 113,000 people of Japanese ancestry were living in California, Washington and Oregon. On Dec. 7, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and a little over two months later President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order empowering the Army to remove certain people from excluded areas.

About 120,000 Japanese Americans were moved to the notorious inland compounds, and received little in the way of compensation from the government for the goods, businesses and property they lost. In 1988, the government agreed to pay $1.65 billion in reparations to 81,000 surviving camp inmates.

Camp Amache, also known as the Granada Relocation Center, is near Granada.

At is peak, the relocation camp contained 30 blocks of residential barracks, each with its own mess hall, laundry and shower rooms. Children attended school while adults worked on farms growing crops such as alfalfa and corn.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket Many Japanese-Americans who were relocated from the West Coast to Colorado elected to remain in Colorado where Ralph Carr, governor of Colorado during World War II, was alone among elected officials condemning the incarcerations.

Today, grass grows over the barrack foundations. A small memorial and the camp cemetery are all that remain.

Several hundred 

young men held at Amache volunteered for the U.S. Army, and 31 were killed serving with the highly decorated 442nd regiment combat unit, composed entirely of Japanese-Americans.

In recent years, the townspeople of Granada along with various civic groups in Colorado have tried to clean up the Amache camp site and maintain the cemetery.

In 2006, then Interior Secretary Gale Norton designated the Amache Camp as a National Historic Landmark.

 

What: The National Park Service Intermountain Regional Office will host discussion about restoration and maintenance of WWII Japanese internment camps

When: Today, 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Where: Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple, 1947 Lawrence St.

 

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7158292

 

Last Updated ( Friday, 12 October 2007 )
 
< Prev   Next >
Design by Joomlactive
© 2008 invenice.net
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.