[Chgogal]

If God forbid I had to chose between a German, Japanese or U.S. Concentration Camp (as characterized by the Japanese American) I will chose the U.S. Concentration Camp. Some how comparing the atrocities of the German Concentration and the Japanese POW camps to the nasty U.S. detention camps in the U.S. minimizes and belittles the great human tragedy that occurred in all of the Nazi camps and all who suffered in the Japanese camps throughout Asia. Millions and millions of people died at the hands of the Nazis and the Japanese as opposed to 120,000+ Americans who lost their homes, businesses and freedoms. All three scenarios are dreadful but the depth of evil and horror of the first two are unimaginable. I am uncomfortable of equating the U.S. “concentration camps” with what happened in Germany and the Japanese camps. They are not equivalent. The choice of words in this documentary was sloppy and in liberal language, not “nuanced” enough for me.

[SuziQ]

I didn’t get any sense that he was equating the camps. He showed quite graphically the conditions in Japanese prisoner of war camps, and the treatment of the Polish at the hands of the Germans. The stories of the Japanese internees was mainly to show that this was done to American citizens within the borders of this country, mainly out of fear. It was wrong, and we know that now, but there’s no question that it was disturbing and created ill feelings among the Japanese for the American government, and rightly so.