Sven Hassel

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn

My older brother was an American Civil War buff and every family vacation from the time I was 6 years old involved touring battlefields... the experience warped me forever [;)]

As to my being the only girl here, well I have found one other, so I'm not totally unique.

I hope I can add a different perspective.

Great to have you here - welcome on board!


Leo "Apollo11"

[Halsey]

Weren't there acts of sabotage commited in South America by the Japanese? Can't seem to recall correctly. Read it somewhere, but I can't locate the book.

Yes it was sad. All I can say is the internment probably saved a few of their lives. Knowing American's, there would have been murders. All it would have took was. Hey, did you hear Joe's brother got killed by those b------ds last week? Let's go teach them a lesson![:(]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Ethnic Italian and German folks were not touched, relatively speaking.

I always thought so too, but I've read recently that about 40% of those interned in the US in WW2 were of European ethnicities, and about 60% Japanese. The internment of members of the other (non-Japanese) ethnic groups has been much less publicized. The reparations made by the US government in recent years was to Japanese-Americans only, ticking off the other 40% (or their families).

From what i understand (and i could be wrong, but this is what my limited research has found) - foreign NATIONALS were interned. This would be foreign citizens that were of an Axis power that were living in the USA when war with that country was declared. Mostly this was Italians and Germans. Not ALL of them were interned - i suspect (but have not proven to my own satifaction at this point) that these were recent arrivals in this country, that had not applied for permanent residence. I would guess that if they had children that were born after they arrived, these children would have also been put into camps.

My own grandmother arrived in the US a little over 20 years before the war broke out. Neither she (or from the report of my father who was US born) nor anyone from the heavily Italian community where they lived were put into camps.

They did seize a portion of the guts of a radio my grandmother had. She still had it when I was a kid - but the shortwave parts had been taken so they couldn't receive overseas (Axis) radio broadcasts.

From what i understand, rounding up foreign citizens from a country with which you are at war was pretty standard in any country before at least 1945. The US actually put a relatively low percentage of foreign nationals of enemy countries (i.e. - people with citizenship only from the country in question) into camps. Being a nation of immigrants, they could hardly afford to do so - but they made special exceptions for the Japanese. They did however generally put ADULT, American-born people of Japanese descent into camps, which they did not (as far as i can determine) do to anyone else. This is the proof of the claim of racism.

Interestingly, the US did NOT generally round up the Japanese in the Hawaiian islands and put them permanently into camps. This was a West Coast phenomenon.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

Weren't there acts of sabotage commited in South America by the Japanese? Can't seem to recall correctly. Read it somewhere, but I can't locate the book.

Yes it was sad. All I can say is the internment probably saved a few of their lives. Knowing American's, there would have been murders. All it would have took was. Hey, did you hear Joe's brother got killed by those b------ds last week? Let's go teach them a lesson![:(]

Apparently, the Chinese on the West Coast had a lot of problems with this. I saw stuff about telling Japanese and Chinese apart (which seemed almost backwards from knowing Chinese and Japanese in my own experience) printed by the government, telling people not to beat up the Chinese, they were our Allies. It didn't always work.

[Halsey]

Unfortunately that is human nature.[:(]
I'm sure it was hard on a lot of the families, but as I stated before, it probably also saved some of their lives. Retribution is a nasty trait of the human race.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
They did however generally put ADULT, American-born people of Japanese descent into camps, which they did not (as far as i can determine) do to anyone else. This is the proof of the claim of racism.

I'm really uncertain as to the nature of who was interned for what criteria among non-Japanese-Americans. I have the impression it went somewhat beyond immigrants themselves, although clearly not all immigrants could themselves have been interned, let alone their decendants. Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't evaluate the information presented there.

There was certainly a lot of racism involved. Some of it probably Pearl Harbor related, but I think much of it due to greater cultural, language, and appearance differences. Back then racism was mostly 'okay' in its various incarnations. [:@]

From the little I've read on the subject, on the west coast there was lots of greed involved, too, as Rhonda Brown points out.

[witpqs]

Some additional info:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040811.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040810.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/printAigner20040809.shtml

6. There was never one single documented case of a Japanese-American being involved in any acts of sabotage or espionage during the war, while there were numerous instances of German Americans committing such acts.

http://www.michellemalkin.com/subversives.htm

[tonyingesson]

It should be noted that Sven Hassel never served in the Wehrmacht. His books are completely fictional. The penal regiment he claimed to have served in never existed.

More info about "Sven Hassel" can be found here.

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Some additional info:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040811.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040810.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/printAigner20040809.shtml

6. There was never one single documented case of a Japanese-American being involved in any acts of sabotage or espionage during the war, while there were numerous instances of German Americans committing such acts.

http://www.michellemalkin.com/subversives.htm

I'm not sure how far I trust Michelle Malkin, as a Chinese, she seems to have a lot of anti-Japanese bias in her writings and she reminds me a bit of Anne Coulter. Which isn't to say that her story isn't true, but it doesn't involve any documented legal action, prosecution, or imprisonment.

The purpose of her book is to support the idea that we are justified in profiling and imprisoning people without due process in the "War against Terror" since our current fixation on seizing and holding people without charging them or giving them access to a lawyer invites a comparison to what we did to the Japanese Americans during the hysteria following "12/7" (Pearl Harbor).

I think there is a lot of political motivation here and her writings should be taken with a substantial grain of salt.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: tonyingesson

It should be noted that Sven Hassel never served in the Wehrmacht. His books are completely fictional. The penal regiment he claimed to have served in never existed.

More info about "Sven Hassel" can be found here.

I did a quick search on Internet and there appears to be 2 (two) opinions on this:

a)
He is genuine (as told by Sven Hassel himself).

b)
He is a fraud (as told by Erik Haaest - Danish journalist who, obviously, doesn't like Sven Hassel).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A379406

http://www.dansmith.info/hassel/biography.asp


Leo "Apollo11"

[pauk]

interesting...

maybe someone from Denmark can provide additional informations for Sven Hassel...?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn
... as a Chinese, she seems to ...

I believe she's not Chinese. But what does it matter what ethnicity someone is?[8D]

... but it doesn't involve any documented legal action, prosecution, or imprisonment.

Just from reading the little bit that I read on line it seems that there was. To be fair, I haven't read the book.

I think there is a lot of political motivation here and her writings should be taken with a substantial grain of salt.

I think it's also true that most of what was written previously and is now more popularly 'known' had lots of political motivation also.

I found the subject interesting because it points out a lot of things that we all need to remember.

1) All groups of people are vulnerable to racism - on both sides of the racism equation (giving and receiving).[:@][:@][:@]
2) Truth is often glossed over for politics sake, falsly presenting the complex in simple and absolute terms.[:-]
3) Take things with a grain of salt and be ready to re-think things with new information.[8|]

On the idea that there was no espionage, etc. I was taught that and read it in various books. Well, given merely the numbers of people involved that's just truly amazing. Being older and wiser ([&:]) and knowing a little more about things in general I find it much more credible that there actually was some. So what? It bears not at all on the loyalty and patriotism of Japanese-Americans as a whole. People are individuals. It's just a more real picture of what happened - a more accurate history.

I used to think that the internment was 90% racially motivated. I think differently now, although (as we both noted earlier) there was lots of racism involved and much wrong done to people. So the motivation from the governmental leaders was different than the simple cause 'racism' - it was fear (right or wrong) in an environment of much uncertainty. Does that mean it was the right decision? Certainly not.

Understanding what has happened before - how decisions were reached - can better equip us to deal with things today. Just as an over-simplified example, people today (at least generally) agree that the internment was wrong (putting aside any cases of individuals who for some specific reason were a legitimate wartime securty risk). Many people (probably most, I'm going out on a limb) have associated that with the notion that there was no esionage, etc. whatsoever. I think that mistaken belief leaves people worse equipped to deal with today's situations because as things happen, and they inevitably do, they are at risk of looking at today's situatiuon as being vastly different. If something really bad happens again (re 9/11), people may be more prone to give in to fear and make bad decisions, both about their own actions and about government policies. "Well, it was wrong to do it then but now is different, so we need to do it now." Bad information makes bad decisions more likely.

I found your comments helpful and informative and I felt a responsibility to explain what I was thinking and why I felt the information was important. Please excuse me if it seems like I was on a soapbox or something - not meant that way.

Executive Summary

Accurate Knowledge = Good [:)]

Racism = Bad [:@]

[Drex]

It's easy for us to condemn the internment of the Japanese-americans during WWII but it was a different world in 1942 and the Japanese did it to us, the dutch , English and the French. Later on in the war conditions in the camps improved and the men were recruited into the army. Some of the Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands were spies and it was generalised into the population in the US even though most of them were either born in the US or lived here since they were children. Segregation of the races was rampant throughout the world.