Can you compare Japanese interment camps to jewish concentration camps?

[caketastydelish]

I was having a discussion with a Jewish person one time regarding the holocaust, and I said "Well we Americans are not so innocent ourselves. Remember what we did to the Japanese with our internment camps?"

She said no, and that you can't compare the holocaust to the Japanese interment camps. I am fully aware that the Japanese internment camps were not NEAR as bad as the concentration camps in Germany, but it was still wrong- and certainly a racist policy. It was clearly discrimination, was it not?

The point of this thread is not to discuss the severity of the Japanese interment camps to the Holocaust- obviously the holocaust was drastically worse. But rather, can you compare to the two to any degree at all? I personally think you can.

 

[warpus]

You can compare them if you want, but they were nothing alike in any sense that matters. I mean, yeah, you can compare the racial/racialist/rasist element of it, but that would imply that you are ignoring the differences.. which are much much larger than the similarities. This will irritate and offend some people.

 

[Lord Baal]

You can certainly compare the Japanese internment camps to the concentration camps of the pre-war era, or even the first year or two of the war. After that point, when the Holocaust kicked into gear, the two become so vastly different as to be unworthy of comparison.

 

[ParkCungHee]

If you can't compare them, then you couldn't say the German's were any worse, so you lose the argument over why you can't compare them.

 

[Verbose]

So this other is specifically not comparing them to the Nazi extermination camps, himself maintaining a difference between "Konzentrationslager" and "Vernichtungslager"?

 

[Masada]

Not "near" as bad? That's an understatement. The Nazi's were not at all concerned with the lives of those they interned. Bergen-Belsen alone killed something like 50,000 prisoners through starvation, disease and neglect. It wasn't even an Extermination Camp either. For comparison, I can't I can't find references to more than about a dozen Japanese civilians deaths in camps total.

So this other is specifically not comparing them to the Nazi extermination camps, himself maintaining a difference between "Konzentrationslager" and "Vernichtungslager"?

The end outcome for Jews in both was the same. The difference was timing.

 

[Racsoviale]

What are the camps the Japanese set up called? because it is seriously confusing if they are called the same as the ones they were put in in America.

 

[Dragonlord]

Certainly you can compare them. There is a basic similarity in that large numbers of people are 'concentrated' i.e. locked up in camps according to some defined characteristic, be it racial, political, religious or some other, not for anything they may have done, as in a prison.
The differences then become huge as to how the prisoners are treated. Concentration camps have been around since the Spaniards invented them in the 19th Century (I forget now whether in Cuba or the Philippines first) and they were likewise used by the British against the Boers in South Africa, and in many more cases during the 20th Century. Some were relatively benign, with inmates being treated relatively humanely, such as the American Japanese internment camps you mentioned. Others were hideous, with total indifference to the inmates' welfare, as in the Japanese POW camps, in which civilian Europeans and others were also imprisoned, and of course German concentration camps, including POW camps, where many died of 'natural' causes caused by such indifference, including too little food, exposure and sickness. Another example would be the Soviet Gulags, in which many were worked to death.

Vernichtungslager, in which the aim was to kill the inmates as quickly as possible, share a basic similarity in organisation, but are otherwise a different kettle of fish.

 

[History_Buff]

If you can't compare them, then you couldn't say the German's were any worse, so you lose the argument over why you can't compare them.

Thread over.

What the Germans did was far, far worse. Doesn't mean both can't be ethically wrong, and at least superficially similar.

 

[Evie]

The way I see it, the fact that the two (the early concentration camps, and the japanese interment camps) served comparable aims with comparable methods is more than enough ground to draw a parallel between them, and compare them.

Of course, the Nazis will come far worse still, because of the extreme disregard for the life of their prisoner they showed in practice, and for the fact that the Americans were less absolute (eg, the Japanese-american unit that served in Europe). But, until the Final Solution, the theory between concentration camps and internment camps was largely comparable - lock up in camp a group of people (largely on an ethnic basis) that we feel is a threat to us).

And, of course, the Nazi will also look far worse because in their case, they followed up on the concentration camps with extermination camps, which are decidedly NOT comparable with the internment camps.

 

[Tahuti]

What are the camps the Japanese set up called? because it is seriously confusing if they are called the same as the ones they were put in in America.

Actually, FDR himself referred to Japanese internment camps as concentration camps(!) though you should also note that few were aware of the Holocaust at the time.

 

[Glassfan]

Compare and Contrast.

The Japanese American Relocation Camps (aka; Nisei Internment Camps) were similar to all concentration camps on the surface, but as you examine them more closely, they are certainly nothing like the NAZI death Camps.

Concentration Camp is a generic term to describe when large numbers of people are held in confinement for extralegal reasons. These include the British camps in South Africa during the Boer War, Spanish camps in Cuba before the Spanish-American War, Japanese-Canadian Internment Camps in WW II, The NAZI camps, The Soviet Gulag - even the American camps to temporarily house Cuban refugees during the Mariel boatlift in 1980. These camps usually have many negative aspects due to their ad hoc creation, lack of planning, and general disregard by the military for the requirements of the inmates (food, water, shelter, medicine).

The term "Concentration Camp" is usually employed as a pejorative by critics to compare them to the worst example - the NAZI death camps.

The principle difference between the Nisei and NAZI camps is that the Nisei were intended to live and be released after the war - therefor there were schools, clinics, churches and other civic improvements. Many of the Nisei were truly relocated to other parts of the country and were relatively free. Japanese-American men could serve in our military or work on local farms, while women could join the USO, give blood or work in on-site industry - earning money to buy items at the camp stores. There were weddings, births, baseball games and reasonably guaranteed survival. And, of course, at the end of the war, they were set free.

The NAZI concentration camps, on the other hand, utterly disregarded any human rights or dignity, and certainly as Lord Baal has pointed out, after the Wansee conference it was a matter of the planned extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other undesirables.

This is not to say that the Nisei camps were "good". People had their lives disrupted, were unjustly imprisoned, and were the victims of racism and slander. Yet, with a couple of exceptions, they were not brutalized, neglected or murdered.

One of many possible differential examples; In both NAZI and Nisei camps there was a problem with guards and prisoners. In the NAZI camps, the guards were fearsomely brutal and violent, committing rape, murder and unspeakable attrocities. In the American camps however, the young, hormonally-challenged Army MP's kept falling in love with the pretty (Japanese-) American girls and tried to get married.

 

[plarq]

Racism was common practice at that time. Nazism was extreme practice even in its time.

 

[Dreadnought]

I've always maintained that people who contend the Japanese internment camps to be on the same level as Nazi death camps are apologist historians.

 

[Traitorfish]

I've always maintained that people who contend the Japanese internment camps to be on the same level as Nazi death camps are apologist historians.

I've honestly never encountered that claim. Do you have any examples?

 

[caketastydelish]

I've always maintained that people who contend the Japanese internment camps to be on the same level as Nazi death camps are apologist historians.

I never said Japanese internment camps are "on the same level".

All i'm saying is the two do have some things in common, and therefore a comparison could be made. Doesn't mean they are equal to each other.

 

[Louis XXIV]

But making a comparison while saying "we were bad too" is suggesting a false equivalency. Yesterday, I cut someone off in traffic because I needed to exit the highway. It, too, was a bad thing to do. You could, if you wanted to, compare it to the Holocaust. But you really can only do so to suggest that it isn't in the same league.

Japanese internment camps are a shameful part of American history. But it's not in the same league as the holocaust.

 

[Lord Baal]

I got cut off in traffic yesterday. You bastards really are as bad as the Nazis.

Just wanted to point out that Glassfan's post is excellent, and really nails the issue. Well done.

 

[Domen]

You can compare Japanese internment camps to Guantanamo.

The term "Concentration Camp" is usually employed as a pejorative by critics to compare them to the worst example - the NAZI death camps.

The principle difference between the Nisei and NAZI camps is that the Nisei were intended to live and be released after the war - therefor there were schools, clinics, churches and other civic improvements. Many of the Nisei were truly relocated to other parts of the country and were relatively free. Japanese-American men could serve in our military or work on local farms, while women could join the USO, give blood or work in on-site industry - earning money to buy items at the camp stores. There were weddings, births, baseball games and reasonably guaranteed survival. And, of course, at the end of the war, they were set free.

The NAZI concentration camps, on the other hand, utterly disregarded any human rights or dignity, and certainly as Lord Baal has pointed out, after the Wansee conference it was a matter of the planned extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other undesirables.

Ekhm... , the Nazis also had 2 types of camps - they had concentration camps and extermination / death camps.

I think you mix all of them and place together under the name "death camps".

This will irritate and offend some people.

Those who built those camps are mostly dead. So it should not offend any living people.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Ekhm... , the Nazis also had 2 types of camps - they had concentration camps and extermination / death camps.

I think you mix all of them and place together under the name "death camps".

The whole Nazi concentration/death camp system was based on extermination so there really wasn't much of a distinction between them, except maybe average life expectancy.