June 9, 2024 @ 10:30 MDT
Site Visit #155
This was my second visit to a concentration camp.
No, there were no gas chambers. There were no medical experiments, nor torture, nor starvation. But the 13,000 people imprisoned here were taken from their homes, allowed only what they could carry on their backs, not told where they were going, nor why, and were never given Constitutional due process nor provided any other rights guaranteed by that document.
Their crime was having ancestors from a country that attacked the United States. Suddenly the fact that they were citizens no longer mattered. How they looked determined guilt.
Minidoka is a relatively new and massively underfunded site in the Park System. The visitor center is only open three days per week, though the grounds are open daily. We arrived from the east and almost missed the turn as they cannot yet afford a sign at the entrance. From the west, there is a sign when entering NPS property.
Despite the limited funds, the visitor center is packed with exhibits covering the different ‘tiers’ of the people – with different terms describing first-generation immigrants, second-generation, etc. Other displays showed life in the camp, and the somewhat insulting questionnaires many were forced to complete declaring their loyalties.
Only a few buildings remain, and they may be reconstructions. Otherwise, one can walk among the gravel paths between the foundations (mostly labelled) of the former buildings. The road from the west goes by the original gate, remains of which still exist. At that entrance, an Honor Roll is posted listing those from the camp who served in the military during World War II. It is a duplicate of one created in the camp at the time, but lost after the camp closed.
As we wandered around this site, I was struck by the fact (as I was at Amache last summer) that the U.S. Government felt 80-year-old men and 10-year-old boys were such a threat to the nation that they needed to be imprisoned without due process, yet they entrusted command of the entire European Theater to a man named Eisenhower.
I believe that there are at least two more concentration camps as part of the National Park system. It’s certainly important to save them and remember them as part of the nation’s darker history.
Steve
