Sure we did not gas them. But anyone who thinks the internment camps were legit is simply wrong.
Did anyone here say that?
Excuse me, but where you alive in California at that time? My mother was and the parents of my best childhood friend from the age of 7 to 10, were also alive at that time -- but being of Japanese ancestry, they were interned.
What was WRONG was for those interned Japanese families to have to give up their land and their possessions, have them repossessed or purchased. But the REALITY is that:
1. Vigilante ignoramus "patriots" were vandalizing Japanese properties and harming Japanese Americans
2. Even long-established Japanese-American families into their second generation were receiving official decrees from the Emperor of Japan as to how they should proceed to aid Japan from their place in America; most just ignored them and went on with their lives as free Americans
3. Japan had declared war on America, attacked Pearl Harbor, and there WERE acts of sabotage in America perpetrated by Japanese
The camps were legitimate in the context of the times and circumstances, and such camps WILL BE LEGIT AGAIN in the context of Muslim Americans if suddenly we started seeing "Aluah Akbar!" suicide bombings and attacks all over America. The camps were, and would be, for the protection of both the imprisoned before ticked-off Americans killed them in mob rage, and for the protection of Americans to keep at bay an identified potential enemy until the end of the fighting. As Hugin pointed out, it was very, very far from Auschwitz.
The taking of Japanese American property, productive farmland, family businesses, that so many had to sell it for a song and were taken advantage of by BAD AMORAL avaricious "businessmen" in America -- THAT WAS SIMPLY WRONG, and THAT is a legit grievance that interned Japanese Americans have.
I didn’t say they were legit. In hindsight they were clearly an overreaction, though it wasn’t so clear at the time. What I said is the use of the term “survivor” as though they were death camps is overblown.