Topaz Camp near Delta

I drove two groups to the Topaz Japanese 

Interment Camp Museum in Delta.

The Topaz Relocation Center, was an internment camp which housed Americans of Japanese descent and immigrants who had come to the United States from Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, ordering people of Japanese ancestry to be incarcerated in "relocation centers" like Topaz during World War II. Most of the people interred at Topaz came from the Tanforan, a facility used for horses, and had homes and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. The camp was opened in September 1942 and closed in October 1945. The approximately 9,000 internees and staff made Topaz into the fifth-largest city in Utah at the time. The extreme temperature fluctuations of the arid area combined with insulated barracks made conditions very uncomfortable, even after the belated installation of pot-bellied stoves. The camp housed two elementary schools and a high school, a library, and some recreational facilities. Many internees became notable artists.

 

Near the Japanese encampment was shell pit.  

The prisoners harvested shells and made beautiful pieces of art.

This is a necklace was carved from walnuts. 

A sweet Christmas card given a guard.    A cupboard made during internment.

Some of the original sheet rock.  The camera the filmed the only

documentary in the Library of Congress.

Painting of the dust storms frequently endured. 

One of the original mattresses provided for the Japanese.

Most family had a radio.

Most Japanese were not Christian. 

 

Each 4 member family group shared a room like this.

One page of the class journal kept during the encampment.

This is the on-site memorial.