CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE GULAG AND THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE
A similarity between the Soviet Gulag camps and the Internment camps was that they took many, many people, only because they were suspicious of them for any or no reason at all. The suspects would not want to go, of course, and if they struggled, it would be much harder on them. There were interrogation sessions done both in the Internment camps and in the Gulags. Aside from how the Soviet Gulag camps and the Japanese Internment camps (although we are focusing on Manzanar) are both internment camps, the conditions were similar but on different levels of torture. In the Soviet Gulag camps, the Poles, Russians, and other races were forced to perform unpaid labor in Arctic-like weather, harsh conditions, all while suffering from near-starvation. If they did not comply with the rules and listen to their authority, they would either be tortured, beaten, starved, or simply shot. At the Japanese internment camps, police brutality was only applied when necessary. It almost seems as if at Manzanar, America was trying to show their trust to the Japanese, but only implicitly, but just enough so that the Japanese wouldn't be hesitant to enlist themselves and their sons into the U.S. Army whenever necessary.
A big difference between the Gulags and the Internment camps, was that the internment camps were exactly what kind of camps they were. The Japanese internment camps just held people in uncomfortable positions, but they didn't make life seem like an impossibility. The Gulags, however, were forced labor camps with cruel conditions. For several male workers, they were issued a thin scrap of soap for an entire month. When they were allowed to wash their faces with water, they would use soup cans to cup up the water, and save the soap for night after they came back from work. There were nurseries and helpful doctors in the camps, and yes, they were strict, but at least there was help. For the tens of thousands of pregnant women who came to the Gulags, they were still forced to work, and have their children work as soon as they could walk. A mother recalls how she once saw the nurses grabbing children out of bed, pouring ice cold water over them, shoving and tying infants' arms behind their backs, and shoving mouthful after mouthful of scalding porridge into their mouths. It is quite possible that the infants were raped. The infants were also thrown into the same pile of corpses of adults to be hauled off to the morgue.
These pictures represent the difference and similarities between the two camps. The picture on the right is people working in Manzanar and the people on the left and in a Soviet Gulag camp in the winter. In both of the pictures, the inmates are obviously working in bad conditions. The difference is the type of work they did and how they were treated. In the gulag, the work was 10 times worse because of the extreme weather conditions, the type of prison, and the attitudes of the guards who were terribly fascist and mean. They had so many prisoners they didn't care if there was a sickness or freezing to death. The authorities at internment camps such as Manzanar, however, were not quite so cruel. They did not work the internees to death as the gulag forced labor camps did, and they were not as harsh on them. Considering that the gulag camps of the USSR and the internment camps of the USA served two completely different purposes, it makes sense why the treatment of the prisoners may be a bit different as well.
Though there were many differences between the camps the USA interned Japanese in, and the camps that Stalin sent many innocent people to, there are still many similarities between the two instances. Here are sited examples from the book Farewell to Manzanar that directly relate to the gulag camps we have been studying:
"... Fred Tayama, a leader in the Japanese American Citizens League and a 'friend' of the administration, was badly beaten by six men and taken to the camp hospital for treatment. Tayama couldn't identify anyone precisely, but the next day three men were arrested and one of these was sent out of the camp to the country jail at Independence, ten miles away. This was a young cook well known for his defiance and contempt for the authorities. He had been trying to organize a Kitchen Workers' Union and had recently charged the camp's chief steward, a Caucasian, with stealing sugar and meat from the warehouses to sell on the black market." ~page 73-74 of Farewell to Manzanar
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This passage from Farewell to Manzanar perfectly demonstrates the tactics Americans used against the Japanese people. They would set up situations that would always result in a Japanese person somehow being accused of a crime punishable with consequences. They would especially do this to the strong leaders as demonstrated by this quote directly from the book. It was not just a coincidence that this man who was organizing the Kitchen Workers' Union was arrested following the hospitalization of a strong leader in the Japanese American Citizens League. This string of events was carefully planned by the authorities, and they were able to take out "two birds with one stone" rather nonshalantly. This happened in the gulag system as well. Almost all of the people in the labor camps were innocent, but had been sent to the camp after being falsely accused of committing a crime. This was especially true of the political prisoners who were strong leaders and could have potentially posed as a "threat" to Stalin's plan. With the secret police in on the system as well, millions of prisoners were able to be captured with some unreasonable excuse thrown together as to why they deserved to be thrown into a gulag camp.
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