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Oral history interview with Don Shimazu

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1990.481.36 | RG Number: RG-50.062.0036

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    Oral history interview with Don Shimazu
    Transcript
    Tape is rolling.
    5, 4, 3--
    This is December 21, 1987.
    We will be interviewing a member of the 522nd Battalion.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you please state your name, address,
    and your place of birth.
    My full name is Satoshi "Don" Shimazu.
    And I live at 3342 Loulu Street, here in Honolulu.
    And I was born on the neighbor Island of Maui at Puunene.
    Could you tell me what your military background
    was exactly, during the war.
    This was before the war?
    Or--
    During the war.
    During the war.
    During the war.
    Well, I served as staff sergeant in charge of the battalion
    survey section.
    And this group had the responsibility
    of accurately locating all the gun
    batteries relative to targets.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, I would like to take you back
    to a period in 1941.
    Specifically, I would like to ask
    you, what was it like being a Japanese-American
    in the year of 1941?
    Did you experience any form of discrimination of any kind?
    Well, the immediate years before 1941, I spent on Maui.
    Only the last three months was in Honolulu.
    So my answer to that would be based mostly
    on my Maui experiences.
    And the community I lived in was a plantation community,
    which was controlled at that time
    by one of the big five organizations.
    And most of us in that situation, the Americans
    of Japanese ancestry, the Filipino ancestry, Korean,
    Chinese, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Puerto
    Rican, at the lower levels we were all very even,
    I would say.
    We got along well.
    But I think at the higher levels,
    maybe there was some subtle discrimination
    because you didn't see any non-Caucasian
    in any position of responsibility in those days.
    So do I understand you correctly, you
    were aware that you were part of a minority group?
    Yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Those days, freedom of movement such as we
    know today was unknown.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you please tell me about your,
    I guess, pre-military experience in 1941.
    I understand Mr. Tsukiyama was your leader.
    Yes.
    Ted Tsukiyama was my first sergeant in the ROTC unit
    at the university.
    Now, I started attending the university
    in September of that year.
    So when war broke out, I had, you
    might say, three months only of ROTC training, which
    consisted mostly of close-order drill and that sort of thing.
    We never fired a rifle, you know.
    And I guess for the great majority
    it was that type of experience.
    But on December 7, because we were in the ROTC,
    they called us out very early, right
    after we noticed the bombs falling and the radio blaring,
    "take cover."
    This is the real McCoy.
    Then I think the orders came over radio, too,
    for all our ROTC students to report immediately
    to the university.
    So we were in uniform in just a few hours
    OK.
    Perhaps I'd like to clarify something.
    Did all of the Japanese-Americans
    that you knew, were they all part of the ROTC organization?
    Well, I think there were some who
    were not in ROTC because it was still, I think,
    an elective course.
    Or maybe, if it wasn't, they had some kind of reason
    for not getting into it.
    So not everybody was in it, but the majority were.
    OK.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you tell me, relate to me
    your experiences at the time that Pearl Harbor was bombed,
    to the best of your knowledge.
    Well this was the day after a big football game, which
    the university was involved in.
    It was the Shriners game.
    And that night we had all the balloons going up,
    everything was festive.
    And then the following morning, bright and early,
    we were aroused by the sounds of gunfire, heavy artillery
    pieces going off.
    And some of us went outdoors to see.
    And we could see black powder puffs up
    in the sky, which was not the ordinary.
    If it was a practice or maneuver kind of situation,
    those would be all white puffs instead of black.
    And at about the same time, some people had the radio on
    and it began saying, "Take cover.
    Take cover.
    This is the real McCoy.
    We are at war with Japan."
    And I remember climbing up on a monkeypod tree
    to try to get a better look of what was happening down
    in the Pearl Harbor direction.
    And during that first few hours, news
    used to spread pretty fast.
    I don't know how, but we were told that some of the shells
    fell pretty close to the Manoa area.
    One fell in McCully.
    And of course, there were reports of others
    in other parts of the city.
    What were your feelings at that time, when
    you heard of the attack and you climbed up
    in the monkeypod tree?
    Well it was one of incredulity, you might say.
    I mean, it was incredible that a tiny country like Japan
    would take on a country like ours, the United States.
    And it took a good long while, I think,
    for the full impact to sink in.
    Did you experience any--
    did you experience any form of, I guess, animosity
    immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked?
    By that you mean animosity toward the Japanese?
    Yes, towards the Japanese.
    Well, some maybe.
    And then, of course, knowing that my parents were aliens,
    I mean they were Japanese citizens too.
    So I was naturally concerned for them too.
    But we were, at least our generation, I would say--
    this was the second generation in general of Japanese
    ancestry--
    most of us were educated and raised, whether we knew it
    or not anyhow, in the samurai kind of tradition.
    And people used to accuse some of our Japanese school teachers
    of teaching things otherwise.
    But that is not true.
    My Japanese school principal was Mr. Tichu Maehara.
    And are many Maeharas here in Honolulu.
    Well, I thought he was a great instructor.
    He was Christian and all that.
    And he always used to tell us that,
    even if we are Japanese citizens,
    and we will have to fight for Japan, in case of anything
    happening you owe your allegiance to this country,
    the land of your birth.
    We got that in Japanese school.
    I went for 12 years, incidentally.
    And at home too, my parents also taught me that.
    And we were brought up listening to Japanese samurai
    stories, where father and son would be on opposite sides
    or brother and brother would be on opposite sides.
    And they didn't hold back anything.
    They fought them like anybody else.
    So the tradition of the samurais was like that.
    And I think all the people who fought in the 442nd
    were raised that way too.
    And this, more than anything else I think,
    could be the explanation for the outstanding performance
    of the 442nd.
    And the 522nd.
    And the 522nd, of course, the entire combat team.
    Many of us who volunteered for service,
    when we got into the army it was already
    with the full knowledge and determination
    that we were going to die.
    And that's the way, I guess, you might
    say the samurais always fought.
    OK, how did that--
    Now let's hope this camera is going to stay.
    Stand by in 5, 4, 3--
    Mr. Shimazu, could you please tell us
    how your cultural upbringing affected your decision
    to enlist, to serve your country?
    Well, as I was telling you earlier, because of the way
    we were educated in the Japanese schools of those days
    and also the way we were raised at home--
    you see, in a typical Japanese family,
    if there are daughters in the family,
    they were the ones who did all the menial tasks.
    The men or the boys in the family were treated like lords.
    They were waited on.
    And I was brought up that way by my parents.
    And so with all of this kind of exposure and training,
    when war broke out, there was no question in my mind
    which side I am supposed to fight for.
    And I didn't even tell my parents
    that I'm going to volunteer.
    I volunteered first, and then I told them later.
    And of course, before we shipped out, I had to go home to Maui.
    And the first thing I did was, of course, to tell my father.
    He didn't say a word, not one word.
    But his eyes communicated everything.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you relay to us
    the experiences, the feelings that
    were going on during the period when the population here
    in Hawaii realized that a large number of Japanese-Americans
    were bearing-- were holding arms as members
    of the particular organizations that
    were in existence at that time.
    Well, the day of December 7, after we got called in,
    we were given a quickie set of instructions on what to do.
    And I remember I was posted in downtown Honolulu,
    right in front of the main library.
    And we were told to challenge every person who comes by us,
    hold them, let them identify themselves.
    And we did this all night long.
    Many of whom, in responding, they were shaking.
    I don't know what their thoughts were.
    But as far as any anti-Japanese feeling to us,
    I did not get any feeling of that until, of course, they
    disbanded this unit, this special unit made up mostly
    of, in fact, all of Japanese mostly.
    Our commanding officer was, I think, Nali Smith.
    And our company commander was Lieutenant Coulter
    at that time.
    So only after they disbanded this group,
    then I got a very strong impression that gee whiz,
    they are looking at us not as Americans, but maybe
    as enemy agents.
    And this was very distressing, very, very distressing.
    And I hope that kind of thing never
    happens again in the future, at least here in Hawaii.
    Now of course, after the war--
    I mean, after we were disbanded, some people
    organized the Triple V, the Varsity Victory Volunteers.
    In my case, I had all kinds of economic problems.
    I was working my way through school.
    And if I didn't have an income of my own,
    I'd be in real trouble.
    So I started looking for other kind of work.
    And at that time, the USAD was one of the few agencies
    employing people.
    And I was able to get one, and this
    was as a carpenter's helper working on ammunition bunkers
    and things like that at Hickam Field.
    But because we were of Japanese ancestry,
    we were not allowed in anything remotely
    resembling a sensitive area.
    We all had identification badges.
    When did you first become aware that Japanese-Americans
    had been placed in internment or relocation camps?
    Were you aware of it at that time?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    It used to come out in the newspapers.
    I remember reading about all of that.
    And it was our good fortune that we were not
    treated in the same manner as they were on the mainland.
    Of course, I'm an engineer, so I can appreciate
    all the logistics that would have been involved if they
    tried to move a population as huge as ours
    over water to some other place.
    Yeah.
    So there must have been the practical side to it too.
    But there were enough people here who were cool-headed,
    who knew us well enough to go to bat for us,
    saying that I don't think you have
    any problems with our Japanese here in Hawaii.
    Do you think that there were general feelings
    of fear throughout the Japanese community here in Hawaii
    because of what was going on, for example, on the West Coast?
    Well, I think there was some of that too, no doubt.
    A few people who were in very influential positions,
    even here in Hawaii, were pulled in.
    And my Japanese school principal was
    one of them, Mr. Tichu Maehara.
    He got pulled in too.
    And of course, within the Japanese community,
    because they were mostly Japanese citizens,
    they were, among themselves, rooting for the other side.
    So there was that kind of friction too.
    And they were always denigrating the American successes--
    you know, that's propaganda.
    It didn't happen like that.
    That used to go on until the end of the war.
    And they wouldn't believe that Japan lost in the end.
    But that's the kind of feelings we saw.
    I mean, observations that we had.
    Were any of your family members affected by the relocation?
    No.
    Not one.
    Well, my direct family, you mean?
    Yes.
    Not one.
    But I had some cousins on the mainland,
    and I'm sure they were relocated to-- they used to live
    in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
    How did that, to the extent that you
    were aware of their detention, did that make you feel angry
    or create any other feelings at that time?
    Yeah, when I and became aware that many of them
    were being indiscriminately relocated, citizens
    and non-citizens, that was, I thought,
    something very terrible.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you tell me when exactly
    did you enter the army?
    I volunteered along with all the others
    and got signed in, given the oath,
    and all that on March 24, 1943.
    Was that here in Hawaii?
    Yes, here in Honolulu.
    I'm sure you remember that time when
    they called for so many volunteers
    and actually got a response that was overwhelming,
    two maybe three times.
    And I saw many grown men, who tried to get in
    and were rejected, crying at that time, many of them.
    So the 442nd, who actually were picked
    were really the cream of the crop, you might say.
    What exactly was your rank and your serial number
    at that time?
    My serial number is hard to forget.
    It's 30104807, almost like my Social Security number.
    But I started off as any other private.
    And in the artillery, when we got to Camp Shelby,
    we found that the T-0 was all practically filled up.
    Anything above buck sergeant was filled already
    by a mainland cadre.
    These were mainland, these things.
    They were our cadre.
    So in the artillery, because of the lack of upward room,
    it was very hard to get promotions.
    But through competition, at least in my survey section,
    I became the number two under my mainland Nisei cadre person.
    He was the staff sergeant.
    I rose to T-4.
    And the way they selected us, after exposing us
    to all the training, was to give us a field problem.
    They would assign two guys to me and two to another competitor
    and so on.
    And they say, see that target way out there?
    I want you to survey that point in on the map,
    the correct coordinates, compass direction, everything.
    And based on that kind of examination,
    although I was much younger than this other guy, who was maybe
    10 or 12 years older than I am, I was picked.
    Yeah.
    So besides my two vehicle drivers, Mike Hara
    and Sokushi Mabuku, I was the youngest
    in a group of seven people.
    And there were some who were graduate engineers.
    It's my understanding that the 522nd
    was the most accurate division, artillery battalion
    [CROSS TALK].
    Artillery, yeah.
    I think we earned this reputation very early in Italy.
    Many times, due to problems of delivery shipments,
    we would run short.
    The whole war front of the Allies
    would be short of ammunition.
    So they used to parcel out only to those units that
    could make maximum use of them.
    And we used to get the lion's share of these shells because
    of our reputation as accurate artillery people.
    Now, to be accurate in artillery,
    every element in the whole organization
    must be on the button.
    One mistake and the shell goes someplace else.
    We had a tremendous fire direction center made up
    of people whose IQs ranged in the 150s, 160s,
    and some higher.
    That's the kind of fire direction center we had.
    And all our radio operators, too,
    were trained so that they would handle three separate fire
    missions on the same channel.
    This is, toward the end of the war, that's how good we were.
    And each gun battery would be able to take care of one target
    by themselves so that the battalion,
    with three batteries, could handle three targets.
    And they were fast.
    Many times the observer would call in for fire--
    now towards the end of the war, when
    we were up against competition, you might say,
    from many, many other units, see, with each passing day
    targets became fewer.
    And we would beat the other units to the punch.
    We'd finish our mission.
    But that's getting ahead of the story a little.
    Anyhow, in Italy we also earned the reputation
    as the time fire experts.
    In artillery parlance, time fire means
    to have the shells burst in the air, optimum height
    maybe about 25 yards.
    But to do that, the gunner's got to cut the shells--
    I mean the fuses--
    as directed by the fire direction center.
    Everything has to be just so.
    And the charges must be the correct charge.
    The barrel elevation or sighting must be OK and all that.
    But they used to put it right on the money.
    Many times we wiped out whole German companies,
    dug in people now, in trenches, foxholes.
    We wiped them out with airburst, which is something few of us
    can talk about.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, I'd like to go back to your experiences in boot
    camp.
    Did you feel a sense of camaraderie
    with the other Nisei, people that were with you?
    Was there a special feeling that was created.
    Well, the Niseis I was rubbing shoulders with,
    people that I got to know very well and like, like one guy,
    you know, Yuki Akaki, he's one of the fire direction center
    guys with a high IQ up in the 160s and above.
    But we used to affectionately call each other "24."
    If you have army goldbricks, and jokingly, we were pure gold.
    See?
    I call him 24 karat, and he used to call me 24 karat.
    That's the kind of camaraderie we used to have.
    And other guys, like William Sadataki and Fred Yamaguchi
    of my service section--
    incidentally, those I had in my service section, you know,
    Fred Yamaguchi, became T-4 under me.
    Then we had James Imada, who passed away, Sazao Hironaka,
    Kaoru Sakima, Mike Haru and Sokushi Mabuku, seven people.
    But of course, in that bunch, one was the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Fred Yamaguchi, he was very sharp with his repartee,
    terrific.
    And Kaurus Akimo, on the other hand, a local guy,
    was a one-man USO team.
    He kept us laughing all the time with his crazy kind of antics.
    But my impression, talking about the mainland people, when
    we first reported to Camp Shelby and we were in formation,
    and then these mainland cadre would be giving us
    the orders of the day and so on, I
    was really impressed with their diction, the way they spoke.
    If you didn't see their faces, you'd think they were haoles.
    That's how good they were.
    And against them, us from Hawaii talking plantation style and--
    oh, I'm telling you, the contrast was tremendous.
    Yeah.
    But that's how good they were.
    People like Mike Masaoka, I remember.
    Yeah.
    Did you feel that there was a, in hearing the stories
    from the Kotonks about their families being interned,
    what were your feelings about that, or in general?
    Well, I had great sympathy for them,
    those who had relatives in these relocation centers.
    And of course, occasionally the unit
    used to arrange trips for those in camp
    to come and visit their relatives.
    And on those occasions, they used to put on a special show
    and allow dancing and that sort of thing.
    And I met a few girls too.
    But nothing came of it, of course.
    Did you feel that those particular, well, the Kotonks,
    the Japanese-Americans from the West Coast, for example,
    who had individuals, individual members of their families that
    were in camps, did you feel that they were angry
    or that they felt that they had a special need
    to show America that they were, indeed, loyal Americans.
    I think those who were in the 552nd and the 442nd,
    these were the people, who in spite of the way
    they were treated, put loyalty to their country way up there
    and came in.
    I mean, these were the kind of people
    we had in [INAUDIBLE],, even from the mainland.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you tell me, when did you land in Europe
    and where?
    We landed in Europe after a long trip
    on one of these liberty ships.
    I think we were on the ocean about a whole month,
    sometimes going backwards, you know.
    But we landed in Brindisi.
    The exact date escapes me right now.
    But it was in 1944, somewhere in April, around there--
    either late March or early April.
    Of what year?
    1944.
    And from Brindisi, of course, by we were put into cattle cars
    and shipped over to the neighborhood of Naples.
    The action, the war front, was already beyond Rome.
    And in Naples, we got all our gear together
    in what they call a staging area and went through some practice
    exercises.
    And then we joined the front.
    When you were in that, in Europe, did you
    or any other members of the Nisei group that you knew,
    did they or yourself experience any form of ambivalence
    by the American--
    the Caucasian officers or enlisted men?
    Our own officers?
    Yes.
    No.
    Our own officers were very much a part of the whole outfit.
    I mean, although they were Caucasian commanding Americans
    of Japanese ancestry, there was nothing obvious
    about discrimination of any kind.
    We had terrific esprit de corps from the colonel right down,
    Colonel Pence in the beginning, and I
    think at the end it was Colonel Miller.
    How about from the other enlisted soldiers
    that you didn't know of?
    Outside of our group?
    Yes.
    Outside of your group.
    Well, you see, we followed another famous organization,
    the 100th Infantry Battalion into action.
    They were there at least a year ahead of us.
    And they had already built up a tremendous reputation
    as Nisei soldiers, part of the 34th Division.
    So when we went over there, we were the beneficiaries
    already of that reputation.
    They treated us, I would say, like they would have
    treated any 100th infantrymen.
    Could you describe the event, which I have become aware of,
    that when the 522nd first landed in Italy,
    they were asked to demonstrate their field accuracy to one
    of the [CROSS TALK].
    [LAUGHS] I was afraid you would ask me
    that one because that was the one time when everything didn't
    exactly fit maybe or somebody was
    unaware of the elevation of the observation post
    that the division artillery commander was observing from.
    But it so happened to be right in the line of our fire
    to the target, you see.
    We have so-called checkpoints.
    We survey these checkpoints in, and then the guns
    registered on these to see what charge it takes,
    what gun settings it takes to hit it right on the nose.
    Well, to do that, of course, we were responsible
    for the survey, locating the target, the guns and so on,
    the fire direction, scales of distances.
    They calculate the instructions to the guns, the sight angle,
    which is how high the barrel is relative to the horizontal
    plane-- that's called the sight angle--
    and then the azimuth, you know in which it's supposed to be on
    and the powder charge to use, that sort of thing.
    But when the orders went to shoot the first round, you see,
    if you're an artillery man, you get used
    to the sound of these shells.
    And the people standing on that hill,
    they could hear them coming like a freight train.
    And they must have sounded very, very close for comfort.
    It just so happened--
    OK, anytime.
    You want to change this?
    [BACKGROUND NOISES]
    Yeah.
    See, people in artillery, they can
    judge closeness or distance.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Sorry.
    Just so we can--
    go ahead now.
    Sorry.
    OK?
    Anyhow, we had this observation party on top of this hill,
    including the commander of the division artillery.
    This is the 34th division artillery commander--
    and all of our own officers like Colonel Harrison
    and all the various battery commanders, using their scopes
    and watching.
    Well, when the first shell started coming,
    they could hear it.
    And it just sounded too close, you see, too close to them.
    They all hit the ground.
    [LAUGHS]
    It was a sight seeing the general hit the ground so fast.
    But that was the only time we came close to one
    being a sad experience.
    That was the only time.
    But it really wasn't a mistake, just somebody
    forgot that this mountain or this hill
    was going to be so close to the trajectory of our artillery
    fire.
    But after that, we showed them that we had what it took.
    And from then on, everything was just perfect
    in terms of our artillery fire effectiveness--
    no more miscues.
    In that regard, I'd like to mention
    Captain Billy Taylor, who, for the battalion,
    was the S-2 officer.
    S-2 is like G-2, intelligence for the small unit.
    And he had the job of picking the next gun
    position every time.
    And I used to go with him, as survey sergeant,
    on these recons.
    And after we decide this is the best place,
    then we come in and survey that position.
    But Captain Taylor was a stickler for finding defilade.
    Defilade mean to be behind something so that they cannot
    observe you directly.
    He always picked these positions very, very carefully that way.
    So throughout the whole combat experience of the 522nd,
    we never once got enemy counter-battery fire.
    In other words, the enemy shooting at us
    or any of our comm positions.
    But we've seen other units on our side,
    maybe no more than 500 yards away, get it because they
    were not as careful as we were.
    But Captain Taylor was like that.
    Yeah.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you describe the direction
    your division took from Italy, naming the relevant cities,
    battles, or dates, or extent of warfare,
    to the best of your recollection?
    You mean, in Italy?
    Yes.
    From Italy and throughout.
    Well, in Italy, we joined the Battle somewhere near Grosseto.
    That's one name that sticks in my mind.
    And then we went through Leghorn.
    And there we did what is called a TOT in artillery parlance.
    This is Time on Target.
    And it involved a whole division of artillery.
    And when you lay a TOT on any target,
    all units calculate the travel time of their shells
    so that when it lands, every other unit's shells
    are falling at the same time, time on target.
    So for that you have the cannon of the infantry companies,
    and one of our Howitzers we had, then the 155s farther back,
    and the 8-inch guns too.
    And they all would be firing so that every shell
    would hit at the same time.
    And that must have been something terrible
    on the receiving end, to have a time on target.
    But Leghorn got it.
    And when we passed through, there
    was hardly a building intact.
    All were damaged.
    Yeah.
    But we went through Leghorn.
    And then the time we wiped out a German company with our time
    fire was Hill 140.
    This was near Castellani.
    And we went on to see the Leaning
    Tower of Pisa first hand.
    Turn the tape over.
    Oops, sorry.
    You guys can keep going.
    OK.
    Anyhow, we saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
    We came to the Arno River, which flows right through Florence.
    And that was the point from which
    we were ordered to leave the Italian front and go to France.
    But when we were there, one morning Captain Taylor told me,
    Sergeant Shimazu, I want you to meet me at 0600 hours.
    We're going to go on recon.
    You bring the jeep.
    What he didn't know was I didn't have a driver's license.
    I had never driven on any road before that time,
    only in the parking lot.
    I used to play with some of these vehicles,
    going forward and backwards.
    But he wasn't the wiser for it.
    We went through all the winding roads
    in front of the Arno River, through narrow streets,
    up hills and down valleys.
    We had to shift into four-wheel drive many times.
    And I remember him saying, you're
    a damn good driver Shimazu.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Fortunately, of course, nothing happened.
    I brought us all home OK.
    But from there, of course, we were all put on ships.
    I think we left from Naples.
    Or was it Leghorn?
    One of those two places--
    and we shipped over to Marseille, in France.
    And from there, of course, we joined the 7th Army.
    And we went through the French Riviera, of course.
    And Dijon is a city we went through.
    Gee, these names slip.
    We went through Lyon, too, and then Epinal, and then Bruyeres.
    And we joined the action just before we got to Bruyeres.
    And of course, in France, before the unfortunate Lost Battalion
    incident, the 442nd scored all kinds of successes.
    We were able to take the enemy's entrenched positions, making
    end sweeps, you might say, and with hardly any casualties
    on our part.
    It was a funny sight because we were on the observation
    post looking down in the open pasture,
    and we see Germans with their hands
    up coming back with a small, very short Nisei
    soldier following them.
    But these were common sights.
    And when we went through the area after the front moved on,
    the dead bodies were still there, many of the Germans.
    And some of them crouched behind machine guns,
    with a clean hole right in the forehead.
    They didn't know what hit them.
    But that's the kind of marksmanship
    the 442nd was noted for.
    Yeah.
    And that was repeated over and over again.
    But because of all of terrific work they did,
    we were given the chance to take a rest
    and pulled out of the line.
    And I don't think we were in the rest area more than 24 hours
    when word came down, we've got to go back again
    to rescue this lost battalion, the Texas 36th.
    And from there on, of course, it was a tremendous series
    of losses for the combat team.
    Could you, Mr. Shimazu, could you relay your experiences--
    Of that time?
    --leading up to the 522nd's rescue of the Lost Battalion.
    Yeah.
    You see, when he says the 522nd's rescue,
    that's a real truth.
    See, if you see some of the photographs of the before
    and after of that area, the before
    shows all very densely wooded mountains and valleys,
    so thick that if you were in there
    you can't see straight very far.
    There are all kinds of trees and bushes.
    And the after pictures, you see them all denuded.
    But many times our own infantry, in trying
    to rescue the Lost Battalion, were
    unable to locate themselves on the map, their own position.
    They couldn't.
    So there were times when they had
    to resort to special measures.
    And in the end, one time they asked
    us, the survey section of the artillery,
    to carry survey control all the way to the front,
    to where the infantry was, to locate them on the map.
    And we did that going through--
    we did that going through all kinds of minefields.
    And these minefields had signs all right,
    but these signs all faced the enemy side.
    And written in German with the words "Achtung," meaning
    attention, mines.
    And we didn't know we were in these minefields
    until we were almost across.
    And then we looked back, and there are these signs, you see.
    And really, I don't know how we got through all of these,
    with the tripwires and things.
    The Germans had what is called the Bouncing Betty.
    This was an anti-personnel mine about this size and that deep.
    They bury it in the ground.
    When you trip a wire, it flies straight up and then--
    you know.
    But we were able to avoid all of these and located the infantry
    that time.
    And the war went on.
    But the one that you are speaking of, the rescue, you
    see, in the heat of battle, many times
    the commanding general of the division
    would be right there on the front line.
    In fact, the son of Sinclair Lewis, the writer,
    was his aide.
    And he got shot standing right next to that general.
    That's how much he was in there.
    And one time he called for artillery fire.
    He gave a set of coordinates.
    You know, I want you to lay fire right there.
    And word got back to our fire direction center.
    They looked at that, and they questioned
    the general's orders.
    That's the location of the Lost Battalion.
    And if we had blindly followed orders,
    blaming the general for the orders,
    and had laid fire at that exact coordinates,
    we would have wiped out the Lost Battalion.
    And just think what that would have meant.
    Good race relations after that would have been impossible
    for the Japanese, I mean Americans of Japanese ancestry.
    We would have been on everybody's S-list.
    S-list, I think you're all familiar with that.
    But in those days, you see, from captain all the way down
    to the buck privates, there were very few guys
    who could even go through one complete sentence
    without all these four-letter words.
    In fact, they couldn't say about five words without one of them
    in there.
    But that's how it used to be.
    When you're fighting, not knowing
    when you're going to die, gee whiz,
    everything gets to gut level.
    So for history's sake, the 522nd Field Artillery Division
    was actually the first--
    The first to save them.
    Right.
    They were the first to save the Lost Battalion,
    before the infantry did.
    And not only did they save those lost Texans,
    but they saved the Japanese-American community
    from a dreadful embarrassment.
    Yes.
    It's beyond my imagination what might
    have happened if we had wiped them out
    at that time with a mistake.
    Yeah.
    I hate to think where we would be.
    All the sacrifices up to that point
    would have been forgotten completely.
    But there's a story on that, too, about the communication
    back and forth--
    Wildcat 6 to Ruby 6 and so on.
    They were using code names, our Colonel Harrison to Colonel
    Miller of the infantry.
    But I think it was because of our fire direction
    center's wide-awake performance, that they were able to say this
    is no good.
    Yeah.
    And of course, the officers took it from there
    and told the general, I guess, you can't do that.
    What was the general's name?
    Dahlquist-- Major General Dahlquist of the 36th Division.
    It's my understanding that the 522nd also
    was involved in the--
    In fact, was the first American division
    to liberate prisoners from some of the concentration
    camp, Jewish concentration camps in Germany.
    Strike that.
    OK, go on.
    It's my understanding-- it's also my understanding that
    the 522nd was the only Nisei battalion to fight--
    To fight in Germany.
    --in Germany.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    You see, after the Lost Battalion campaign,
    we were taken down to Southern France,
    in the Nice, Menton area, well actually, Sospel.
    And this was often referred to by everybody as the Champagne
    front.
    Of course, it wasn't all that easy too.
    We had a lot of work to do.
    But we stayed there till about March of the following year,
    through some of the worst winters on the French Maritime
    Alps.
    And our survey section worked through all that snow,
    climbing up peaks with our survey equipment,
    to prepare all the fallback positions,
    if they ever became necessary.
    Of course, like some of the other people have said,
    as long as our own infantry is in front of us,
    we have no fears of the enemy ever breaking through.
    But, of course, our officers had to, at least,
    have contingency plans just in case the unforeseen happened.
    So that was our job, to survey all kinds of gun positions
    in the rear.
    But anyhow, from that area, then the infantry
    went back to Italy.
    But the artillery was needed for the crossing of the Rhine
    by the Allied forces.
    And I guess because the reputation we had,
    they wanted us there.
    So we were assigned to different divisions.
    I think the first one we were assigned to
    was the 63rd Division.
    And then after that, the 45th, the 44th, and the 101st,
    like that.
    But we joined the action in the eastern--
    I mean westernmost corner of the Saar triangle.
    If you were familiar with the map of that area,
    the Saar area is a triangle.
    Kleinblittersdorf is the name that comes to mind.
    We joined it there.
    And from there to the Rhine it was about 95 or close
    to 100 miles.
    And that distance we traveled in about 14 days,
    roughly seven miles a day average.
    And we crossed the Rhine in support of the Allied forces
    near the city of Worms.
    This is where Martin Luther tacked on his homily theses
    on the cathedral door.
    Yeah.
    It was close to that.
    And we crossed the Rhine early in the morning
    with no problems.
    And we hit cities like Mannheim, which
    is very close to Heidelberg.
    The Neckar River joined the Rhine pretty close to that.
    And we crossed the Siegfried Line.
    And those of you who don't know anything about that,
    they used to say about the Siegfried Line
    like the French Maginot Line, but the two
    were far different, at least in the area where we crossed.
    The Siegfried Line consisted of a lot of concrete pyramids,
    maybe about 3 or 4 feet high, spaced close enough so
    that tanks trying to get through would be hung up.
    But the Allied armies had no problem going
    through the Siegfried Line.
    And once we got through that, from then on it was a race.
    Every day targets got fewer and fewer.
    Firepower became more and more concentrated on our side.
    So with that scenario in mind, here's
    the 522nd, one of dozens of targets.
    And every time a target becomes--
    I mean, a target is spotted, let's say,
    if one observer of one unit sees it,
    half a dozen other observers of other units would see it too.
    And they all call back to their respective outfits
    to shoot on that target.
    And the procedure is first to register with one gun,
    depending on the size.
    Sometimes if it's a big target, they use four guns to register.
    But this is to range the guns until you're on target.
    And then they say fire for effect,
    and then you bring all the other guns into action.
    Well, the 522 used to be able to fire for effect, in other words
    to wipe out the target long before the other guys got
    there-- first round out there.
    But this kind of thing was a very common occurrence,
    that many times we'd see officers
    of-- commanding officers of other artillery units
    visiting our colonel to congratulate him
    on the tremendous outfit he had.
    Yeah.
    These kind of stories, although I was not
    in the fire direction, my good friend 24 was there.
    And he used to tell me because they were right next to the CO
    in fire direction.
    And so I was well informed through that pipeline.
    But other cities we went through--
    [BACKGROUND NOISES]
    Crailsheim was one.
    Ulm was another.
    And then as we began to approach major cities like Augsburg,
    we were already traveling on the German Autobahn.
    You know, the Autobahn is their superhighway system.
    This was one of Hitler's big projects,
    and it was already operational.
    The road compared to ours was really outstanding
    in terms of width, freedom of movement, all of that.
    And the planes, the German fighter planes,
    were using these for takeoffs and landings.
    And they'd all be hidden in the woods alongside.
    And I don't know exactly what date it was,
    but we began to see their first jet fighters because they
    had fuel capacity to keep them airborne only
    a few minutes, maybe less than 10 minutes.
    So they didn't have too much time.
    But they'd make their passes at us,
    and strafe, turn, and go back for refueling.
    Our gunners, you see, never experienced that kind of speed
    before.
    The propeller-driven ones were only half as fast.
    By the time we even try to shoot, they're gone already.
    But that was our experience with the German jet fighters.
    And we saw many of them still crated alongside the roads.
    It was a good thing that they didn't have it available sooner
    than that.
    Of course, since then they've--
    well, everybody has been able to improve on it.
    And now they can stay up in the air for many, many hours
    Tape.
    Quiet, please.
    Tape is rolling.
    1, 2.
    The 542nd field artillery battalion
    was engaged in many distinguished events
    throughout the course of the war and particularly in Germany.
    Could you tell us?
    Yes, our 522nd field artillery battalion
    was the only Nisei unit to fight in Germany.
    OK, thank you.
    Mr. Shimazu, it's my understanding
    that the 522nd was also the only--
    well, one of the first American battalions
    to liberate the concentration camps in Germany,
    and in particular, Dachau.
    When did you first come in contact
    with a concentration camp in Germany?
    Gee I should remember the day, but I don't.
    But anyhow, when I personally got there, I remember,
    the gates were already open.
    Prisoners were milling around in all directions.
    And I remember going into this particular one.
    And of course, which of all the many Dachau and this one was,
    I'm not sure.
    But there were no homes anywhere in sight outside
    of this concentration camp.
    But inside, we went into, I would
    think, what was then the administration building,
    where everybody coming in would check in, that sort of thing.
    I was able to go in that.
    And sitting on the couch in the living room
    was a guy that from all my high school
    days, I remembered as the Reverend Martin Niemoller.
    This guy was so calm, cool, and collected.
    Everybody else is running around.
    He, in spite of his emaciated condition,
    was very alert and just very calmly sitting there.
    He really impressed me.
    But anyhow, in this Dachau area, I
    think our headquarters battery bivouacked very close to it.
    It must have been well within walking distance.
    So we had many people in our area.
    But orders were out to everybody that we
    are not to feed these freed prisoners because they were
    really skin and bones already.
    And the whole digestive tract is incapable of handling any kind
    of food that we consume.
    And being a staff sergeant, it was my duty
    to also enforce all the commands.
    So I did not personally feed, even
    though some others might have.
    But it was a very painful experience
    because that day at the evening meal,
    we had a place designated for disposing
    of all of our food scraps.
    It was a hole in the ground or something.
    And I also went over there to scrape out
    of my mess kit all the leftovers.
    And there were two or three of these prisoners standing
    around and in their German asking, Warum?
    Warum?
    Why are you throwing that food instead of giving it to us?
    Oh, it was really very painful.
    You see, our insides, we want to help them any way we can,
    give them the food.
    But we had orders from high up not
    to feed them, that proper food will be prepared
    for them in very short order.
    So don't.
    That was a real sad experience.
    These people were really walking skeletons already.
    And they had their striped clothing on.
    Their hair was all cropped kind of short.
    I recall, eyes were sunken.
    And yet, they were alert.
    These people were very alert.
    And I admired the fortitude they had
    in having survived all the terrific treatment they had.
    But we didn't stay there very long, I think just overnight.
    And the next day, already, we were on the road.
    Now, others have said that they've seen dead horses being
    torn and eaten by these people.
    I didn't see that personally.
    But from there, we-- of course, incidentally,
    the Dachau concentration camp we entered
    was very close to Munich.
    And I think it was within a 10 mile radius,
    and more on the north side of Munich.
    So we went into Munich.
    And while there, we had the good fortune of liberating one
    of the German breweries.
    And for the time we were there, we had all the beer we wanted.
    But the situation was fast-moving.
    From there, we went on to places like Berchtesgaden, Bad Tolz,
    and on into Austria.
    We went as far as a place called Waakirchen.
    And we were there maybe a little bit beyond that too.
    But while we were there, I, as the ranking noncom,
    accepted the surrender of a German major general.
    It's written up as Major General Steinmeier.
    But he came with a busload of troops,
    leading them in a staff car of his own
    with a white flag flying.
    This was five days before the end of the war.
    But they must have been watching us from all the wooded areas up
    above.
    And they felt, well, I think these guys won't shoot us.
    And they came out.
    They surrendered to us with everything they had.
    And for a short while, we had the privilege
    of driving in a comfortable Daimler Benz I think it was,
    a staff car.
    But we got to headquarters.
    We want that.
    Of course, it was all--
    once we capture something, it's government property.
    We had to turn it over.
    Then from there, of course, I think we pulled back
    to a place called Stepa.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you describe--
    I understand that you were one of the members who was actually
    there at the gates of Dachau when it was opened, when
    the lock was shot off, and the gates were opened,
    and the 522nd liberated Dachau.
    No.
    I was not in that party that may have blown the lock off.
    I was not.
    When I got to that area, the gate was already open.
    People were out.
    So I'm not sure who might have done that.
    Could you describe the events when you first
    came in contact with the camp?
    In other words, you came, you marched up, or you were--
    Well, we were in vehicles.
    Yes.
    Yeah, we came up to it.
    And what your impressions were.
    Well, these people in the striped clothes,
    I guess they were blue and white stripes or blue and gray.
    They were all over the place, hundreds of them.
    And of course, I didn't get to talking to any of them,
    except, of course, my experience at the food scrap
    disposal, some--
    that was the closest I came to some of these people.
    We visited, of course, many years later, in 1984.
    We went through one of the Dachau camps.
    And I couldn't recognize-- relate anything
    I saw in 1984 with what I saw back in 1945.
    In 1984, there were homes all around this place already.
    OK.
    Mr. Shimazu, who were the prisoners,
    in terms of nationality?
    Or were they all Jewish people to your knowledge?
    Or could you tell?
    I'm not sure about that.
    But I think they were mostly Jews, mostly Jews.
    Of course, I didn't find that out until many years
    later, and especially, in 1984.
    Did you see any of the extermination facilities?
    No I did not take the time to look at the whole camp.
    I just went in and went up.
    Did you come into any actual contact
    with any of the prisoners when you first
    walked through the gate?
    When you say contact, you mean conversation-wise?
    Yes.
    Or did they come up to you?
    No, not except for that one time when
    they asked me why in German--
    Warum.
    That was the only time I spoke to anybody.
    Do you recall any other incidents or reactions to--
    well, by the survivors to you and the other members
    of the 522nd as liberators of Dachau?
    No, I'm afraid I didn't have the luxury of sticking around
    because as survey sergeant and recon sergeant,
    we had to hit the road.
    Were they happy?
    Did you see any reactions in terms of happiness?
    And did they express a feeling that they were
    being liberated by the 522nd?
    Well, in terms of trying to fathom the reactions they
    might have had, it's very hard.
    These are people who've been incarcerated for so long,
    they didn't know what to do with themselves, really.
    Where do they go?
    Where can they turn?
    And seeing a friendly unit like the 522 over there,
    we were the closest things or closest people
    to them in that situation.
    And they looked to us for their help.
    And I think they got them through proper channels
    long after we left.
    Mr. Shimazu do you see any parallels
    between the Japanese internment, the internment
    of Japanese-Americans in the United States,
    to the concentration camps that the 522nd encountered
    in Germany in terms of the oppression of minorities
    for whatever reasons they may be?
    Well, if you are asking about man's inhumanity to man,
    yeah, there are some parallels.
    And in terms of the kind of barbed wire enclosure,
    there were parallels.
    But treatment-wise, I think there was a vast difference.
    The concentrate-- well, relocation centers
    of our country, at least they were fed
    properly, I would think, although the treatment
    in some cases left a lot to be desired,
    whereas in the concentration camps in Germany,
    these were extermination factories, you might say.
    Yeah.
    Do you see any irony or did you feel
    any kind of irony at that point in Dachau
    that here, the Japanese-Americans
    as a minority had been interned on the West Coast,
    and here were the Japanese-American Nisei
    soldiers liberating?
    Liberating the Jews.
    Well, that kind of thought, I guess,
    didn't occur to me at that time.
    How about now?
    Now, yeah, there is some irony.
    And I hope that sort of thing never happens again
    in our country or anyplace else.
    I really hope and pray that we can live like brothers
    and sisters in this world.
    Mr. Shimazu I have another question.
    Had you heard of the concentration camps
    before reaching-- before encountering Dachau?
    Had you heard about it?
    Could you explain that to me?
    Well, I think we used to learn a little bit of it in school.
    And I think we used to read some of it in the papers
    or hear news commentator stuff about it, yeah.
    But hearing about it and seeing firsthand, it's no comparison--
    night and day.
    Many people don't believe it.
    In fact, nowadays, there are some people who say,
    that never happened.
    But we saw it with our own eyes, these starving prisoners.
    And I don't think any of us who saw it will ever forget it.
    Anything else?
    I wanted to know, Mr. Shimazu, exactly what
    did you hear about the concentration camps before?
    Well, that the gentlemens considering themselves
    a master race were trying to eradicate all the Jews
    in Germany.
    And in the army, too, we saw some training films,
    showing that sort of thing.
    So actually, this was in '43 or '44
    that you had heard about the camps already?
    Well, no, I think we may have a little bit earlier too.
    But in the army, we were exposed to training.
    And do you know whether today there
    have been any times that you can remember where you have been
    in contact with people who still do not believe that that
    happened, that there were, in fact, concentration camps,
    where the Germans had planned to annihilate the Jewish people?
    Well, I didn't have any personal contact
    with people of that ilk.
    But I read about it in the newspapers.
    And I can't believe that there are people who feel like that.
    Do you know-- do you think the people here today the younger
    generation are aware of the concentration camps?
    I know they're becoming more aware right now
    of the relocation camps, but for many years,
    people didn't talk about that either.
    I think.
    I think, and unfortunately, a lot of young people growing up
    today don't know about it.
    What do you think we can do to ensure that this never happens
    again, either for the Japanese, or for the Jews,
    or for any minority to be that oppressed?
    By showing documentaries of these things again,
    and again, and again.
    And thank you so much for helping us to do that.
    Thank you, Mr. Shimazu.
    One-- thank you.
    OK, what is the statement, Judy?
    He has to say--
    What can we do?
    And he's going to say, what we can today--
    What we can do--
    To not let this happen again.
    --what we can do to not let this happen again.
    I think what we can do to prevent this
    from happening again--
    Wait a minute.
    That's-- hold on.
    I think what we can do to prevent this
    from ever happening again anywhere in this world is
    to show documentaries of these events over, and over,
    and over again through all the different media
    available to us.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Shimazu, what was it like being
    a Japanese-American in 1941?
    Was there any kind of discrimination
    that you or other Japanese-Americans
    experienced at that time?
    Well, if you're asking me to talk about the time
    before the war, most of my life was spent on the plantations.
    OK.
    We don't have very much tape left.
    Did you-- Mr. Shimazu, did you know
    that the Japanese-Americans had been
    interned in relocation camps after the bombing of Pearl
    Harbor?
    Yes, I think, as it developed--
    OK, next one.
    Don't worry, I'm not cutting you off.
    Mr. Shimazu, what was your reaction
    when you first heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
    Could you relay those experiences to us?
    Yes.
    It was really incredible.
    I mean--
    Next one.
    Look through those.
    Is there any way to stop it?
    No.
    OK.
    I understand that the 522nd battalion
    was involved in the liberation of Dachau
    and other concentration camps.
    Yes.
    At the time we went by over there,
    we thought we were the first, really,
    of all the Allied units to liberate
    those prisoners from Dachau.
    Could you tell us the experience about the incident
    with the 522nd, where the general was almost, I guess,
    hit by one of the shells from the 522nd in Italy?
    This was in Italy, yes.
    We were having a practice exercise--
    Can you ask some more questions?
    --for the benefit of the division artillery commander.
    Ask that one more time.
    Mr. Shimazu, could you tell us about the experience, which
    I have heard about, where the 522nd almost
    hit the general in Italy?
    I was afraid you would ask that.
    No, but it happened.
    And I think it was a case where somebody
    forgot how high that mountain was on which they had the--
    Next question.
    Was your impression when you first
    saw Dachau and you saw some of the prisoners there?
    Well, the first impression, seeing these people
    in the condition they were in, was a great pity.
    I understand that the 522nd was actually the first--
    well, actually, the battalion that
    rescued the Lost Battalion.
    Yes.
    Few people know about this, but if we had blindly followed
    the general's orders and--
    Go ahead.
    Rolling.
    Well, in a few seconds.
    We'll keep looking first.
    Speak.
    Mr. Shimazu, I understand that the 522nd
    was an extremely distinguished battalion during the war.
    Could you tell us a little bit about the history?
    Yes.
    From our combat experiences in Italy--
    No nods or anything like looking down.
    --and in France, and Germany, we built up
    a tremendous reputation as an outstanding unit.
    We were known as the time-fire experts in Italy
    and an outstanding outfit in Germany.
    We used to be able to handle three
    separate simultaneous fire missions over the same radio
    channel, which no other outfit could do.
    And to attest to this, we had an observer
    with wartime experience from Bougainville
    in the Pacific War.
    Next question.
    Another question.
    Mr. Shimazu, from what I understand from you,
    the 522nd was the only Nisei battalion to fight in Germany.
    Yes, the 522nd field artillery battalion
    was the only unit made up of Americans of Japanese ancestry
    fighting in Germany.
    OK, next question.
    Next question.
    Prejudice.
    Mr. Shimazu, did you experience any prejudice or discrimination
    while you were a member of the 522nd from any
    of your commanding officers or from any
    of the GIs other than the people in your unit?
    All officers, I think, were a very dedicated corps
    of officers.
    They--
    Anything else you want to ask on the record?
    Let's see.
    What was the question?
    Mr. Shimazu, have you ever expressed these experiences
    to your children before?
    I have, but not to any detailed extent--
    broad overviews, I have given them.
    But they don't know the details.
    And why is that?
    Mostly because they've been too busy with their own affairs,
    studying for their school exams, or going out
    on their socials, or that sort of thing.
    Yeah.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Don Shimazu, born in Punei, Maui, Hawaii, describes his role as a staff sergeant in charge of the 522nd Battalion survey section, with the responsibility for accurately locating targets; growing up on a plantation on Maui, where there was a subtle discrimination against all minorities; beginning ROTC at the university in September 1941; his memories of the attack on Pearl Harbor; experiencing some animosity for being Japanese immediately after the attack; how he had been schooled in the Japanese samurai tradition, which taught him to have loyalty to his country (the U.S.) first and how this tradition led to the success of the 442nd and 522nd; enlisting and the disbanding of his first unit; becoming a carpenter’s apprentice; learning about the Japanese internment camps; volunteering for the army on March 24, 1943; going to Camp Shelby; being made second in command of his cadre; how his division was known for being the most accurate artillery division; his combat experiences in Italy in the towns of Grosseto, Livorno, Castellano, Pisa, and Florence; going to Marseille, France; joining the 7th Army and traveling through the French Riviera, Dijon, and Lyon; crossing a minefield without realizing it; saving the lost battalion (131st Field Artillery, 2nd Battalion); staying in Southern France until March 1945; serving with various battalions, including the 63rd, 45th, 44th, and the 101st to assist in the Allied crossing of the Rhine; travelling through Mannheim, Germany and the Siegfried Line; entering Dachau; being told not to feed the camp survivors as they would be unable to cope with the soldier’s food; going to Munich, Germany; returning to Dachau in 1984; the similarities and differences between the German and American internment camps; his memories of the concentration camps in Germany; and ways to prevent the Holocaust from happening again.
    Interviewee
    Don Shimazu
    Interviewer
    Andrew Mirikitani
    Judy Weightman
    Date
    interview:  1987 December 21
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, acquired from the Hawaii Holocaust Project

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 videocassette (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. See collections release form for details regarding restrictions.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Shimazu, Don.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Andrew Mirikitani and Judy Weightman, of the Hawaii Holocaust Project, conducted the interview with Don Shimazu on December 21, 1987 as part of a project to interview Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators currently living in Hawaii. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in March 1990.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:10:20
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511107

    Additional Resources

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    Summary (English)

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    Also in Oral History interviews of the Hawaii Holocaust Project

    Contains 34 oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators all currently living in Hawaii

    Date: 1987-1991

    AJA Photos

    AJA Photos

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Akamine

    Oral history interview with Michael Akamine

    Oral History

    Michael Akamine, born August 15, 1922, describes his parents; moving to Oahu, Hawaii when he was six years old; graduating high school in 1942; working for the as a carpenter and construction worker; working on a poultry farm when Pearl Harbor was bombed; how his parents were from Okinawa, Japan; volunteering for the U.S. Army in 1943; going to Camp Shelby; not knowing anyone who went to a relocation camp; being a battery agent in the 522nd; how his father had told him about the Dachau concentration camp; going to Dachau and the conditions in the camp; meeting up with his friends from the army every year; how he has not talked about his experience before this interview; and why he decided to volunteer in the army.

    Oral history interview with Stanley Akita

    Oral history interview with Stanley Akita

    Oral History

    Stanley Akita, born in 1923 in Hawaii, going to Honolulu to vocational school; how he volunteered for the 442nd; going to training at Camp Shelby; being picked to join the 100th and being sent to Southern France; being captured by Germans and asked why a Japanese man was fighting with the Americans; being sent to Koma, Strassburg, Stuttgard, and the prison, Starlite 70; being forced to clean the streets of Munich; bribing guards for food with cigarettes; being liberated by American troops; and being taken to Königsberg, Germany (Kaliningrad, Russia) then France and Boston.

    442nd Banquet

    442nd Banquet

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tana Basa

    Oral history interview with Tana Basa

    Oral History

    Tana Basa (née Hecht), born April 18, 1940 in Berlin, Germany, shows pictures of her family from before the war. She discusses her father’s role as a cantor during WWI; how her first memory was of Theresienstadt; staying in the camp until the end of the war in a single room; having all her hair cut; being hungry a lot; having her leg in traction; her mother’s death; how two of her sisters went to Auschwitz and one sister went to Bergen-Belsen; how her father hid her under the tub when the guards came for her; how her father got a Jewish doctor to take her to a tuberculosis sanatorium, where she stayed until they were liberated; how she reunited with her two sisters, who went to Bergen-Belsen; the death of her aunt and uncle; being in a displaced persons camp; how her father remarried and she and one of her sisters were put in a German Jewish orphanage, where she stayed for five years until her father took her back; and immigrating to the United States with her father when she was 11 years old.

    Oral history interview with Carla Chotzen

    Oral history interview with Carla Chotzen

    Oral History

    Carla Chotzen, born in Weimar, Germany in 1924, describes her family; going to England; moving to Berlin, Germany in 1935; going to school in Berlin and getting kicked out soon after; going to a Jewish school and then Switzerland; how her father had read Mein Kampf and knew that they would have to leave Germany; how her father left them in Switzerland and met her mother in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); immigrating to the United States when she was 11 and stayed with her grandparents in Buffalo, NY while her parents were in England; going to the University of Rochester; and working for the American Jewish Committee in New York; the fate of her extended family.

    Oral history interview with Walter Chotzen

    Oral history interview with Walter Chotzen

    Oral History

    Walter Chotzen, born May 17, 1911 in Ziegenhalt, Germany (Glucholazy, Poland), describes the small town where he was born; attending the University of Berlin and quitting after a few semesters; working for a manufacturing business, where he was fired once Hitler came to power; working for his father; being socially shunned for being Jewish; being called up by the draft board; smuggling money past the border into Czechoslovakia and being questioned by the Gestapo about this activity; how his father sold his factory in 1938; going to Holland; how his parents hid in Berlin for a year then fled to Sweden; how he lived in Seattle during this time; his family history; his education in Germany; the antisemitism before the war; his experiences in Berlin between 1933 and 1935; going to a Nazi Party parade on Unter der Linden; the fate of his extended family; how he became socialist as Hitler became stronger; his thoughts on the internment camps in the U.S. for Japanese Americans; and his thoughts on the liberation of Dachau by Japanese-American troops.

    Crystal Night oral history interview

    Crystal Night oral history interview

    Oral History

    Five individuals who lived in Germany and Austria before, during, or after Kristallnacht discuss their experiences. The interviewees describe the Nazi Party in Austria; growing up in Berlin, Germany and being persecuted for being Jewish; life in Frankfurt, Germany, where there were boycotts against Jewish stores; a parade of storm troopers (Sturmabteilung); a torchlight parade in 1933 on Under Der Linden in Berlin where 100,000 storm troopers marched singing; how the Nazis took most of their possessions; seeing a synagogue burning in Austria during Kristallnacht; how they all left Europe; and their thoughts on preventing the Holocaust from happening again.

    Oral history interview with Anne Flagg

    Oral history interview with Anne Flagg

    Oral History

    Anne Flagg (née Flagenheimer), born September 17, 1910 in Germany, describes how Hitler invaded the Rhineland when her children were infants; her father’s factory; how Jews were forbidden from going to concerts or to the opera; how the synagogue was burned during Kristallnacht; how the Nazis destroyed their house and the French governess saved her husband; the first pogrom in 1934; how some of her relatives got out of Germany; how she went to their summer home in February 1938; how she went to Stuttgart to get visas and how they did not have passports; finally getting passports; how the train she was on to Holland, the Netherlands was searched by the Gestapo and they stole her watch; meeting her husband in Holland; taking a ship to the United States; how her parents got out soon after; how the maid saved their silver and the bookkeeper took accounts receivable and buried it and collected for her parents for later; how her friend rescued many Jews by posing as a Nazi; visiting Germany in 1952; life after WWI; how the Nazis stole their possessions; the fates of her aunts and uncles; and how she believes the Holocaust could happen again.

    Oral history interview with Royce Higa

    Oral history interview with Royce Higa

    Oral History

    Royce Higa, born in 1920 in Honolulu, Hawaii, describes leaving school early to work; working as a dishwasher in Okinawa, Japan; being Japanese and the difference between Akin and Japanese; organizing a labor movement at age 16; graduating from the University of Michigan; becoming the director of a tuberculosis organization; joining the army in 1945; his brother’s death in Italy; training at Camp Shelby; getting the measles and suffering depression; going to Germany where he was a forward observer; crossing the Rhine River and not meeting any resistance; seeing a death march from Dachau and how they did not know at the time that they were Jewish prisoners; going to Augsburg, Germany; meeting a Lithuanian Jew and helping him find his family; getting his master’s degree in public health after the war; his life in politics; seeing the attack on Pearl Harbor, which were close to his home; and the Japanese who were loaded on to ships and taken to the mainland.

    Oral history interview with Fred Hirayama

    Oral history interview with Fred Hirayama

    Oral History

    Fred Hirayama, born in Hawaii, describes living on a plantation; volunteering for the army; the discrimination his brother experienced as a Japanese American; how his parents were proud of him for serving; how no one in his family was sent to a relocation center; going to Camp Shelby and never experiencing any discrimination; serving in the 522nd in France and Germany; his experiences with the concentration camps; going to Dachau where he saw the atrocities, gas chambers, and the inmates; returning to Germany in 1984; his memories of the Pearl Harbor attack; and some pictures he has of the state of Texas honoring the 442nd regiment.

    Oral history interview with Hazel Ishii

    Oral history interview with Hazel Ishii

    Oral History

    Hazel Ishii, born December 15, 1917, describes her Japanese parents and how she identifies as American; being in Maui, Hawaii during the attack on Pear Harbor; not having experienced any prejudice; how conditions changed for Japanese Americans after the war; a friend’s experience in a Japanese American internment camp; her daughter’s pursuit of archeology and Hebrew studies; and her family’s efforts to remember the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Susumu Ishii

    Oral history interview with Susumu Ishii

    Oral History

    Susumu Ishii, born on January 2, 1918 in Hawaii, describes being a second generation Japanese American; being 24 years old when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred; being drafted a few months before the Pearl Harbor attack; how the commander told the Japanese Americans that they could not be trusted; how he identified as an American; attending a Japanese school; training at Camp Shelby and in Wisconsin; visiting a friend at a Japanese American relocation camp and his view on the camps; not experiencing any discrimination when he was in Mississippi but witnessing discrimination against black Americans; attending annual Holocaust memorial services; his daughter’s pursuit of Hebrew studies; and his view that those who were relocated to camps in the U.S. should be compensated.

    Oral history interview with Stanley Kaneshiro

    Oral history interview with Stanley Kaneshiro

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Richard Kuba

    Oral history interview with Richard Kuba

    Oral History

    Richard Kuba, born in March 1921 in Kailua, Hawaii, describes being a first generation Japanese American; living in Kailua when Pearl Harbor was attacked; volunteering to serve in March 1943; his non-Japanese friends and their views of the Japanese; how he heard nothing against Americans in the Japanese community; being stationed at Fort Shelby (probably Camp Shelby) in the infantry; being a radio operator when he went overseas; being in combat; feeling like his battalion was treated differently because they were Japanese Americans; his views on Hitler; how he did not know anything about the concentration camps other than what he read in the papers; and his first contact with the liberated prisoners.

    Oral history interview with Borys Kusne

    Oral history interview with Borys Kusne

    Oral History

    Borys Kusne, born in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania on August 17, 1918, describes growing up in a middle class Jewish family; the antisemitism in Vilnius; being the only Jew at his college in 1938; being inducted into the Polish army in 1939; how both the Russians and Germans were taking Polish prisoners of war; walking back home; the Nazi invasion in 1941; the new rules established for Jews; working at the railroad then moving to the ghetto and working in a hospital; being in the ghetto until 1942, when he was deported to Estonia to a liquidation camp; never seeing his mother again; conditions in the camp; and marching all night and leaving the group for the forest.

    Oral history interview with Hedy Marmorstein

    Oral history interview with Hedy Marmorstein

    Oral History

    Hedy Marmorstein, born in Vienna, Austria November 18, 1921, describes her parents; going to school until she was 16; finishing high school in New York; leaving Vienna in December 1938; her Jewish education; how they accepted antisemitism as a part of life; experiencing antisemitism in school and protesting; her non-Jewish friends; being sponsored by her father’s nephew to come to the United States; corresponding with her parents until the attack on Pearl Harbor; learning later that her parents were deported to Riga, Latvia (Kaiserwald concentration camp); how when she arrived in the U.S., Americans did not realize how sinister Hitler was; her experiences during Kristallnacht; antisemitism in the U.S.; how her experiences have affected her life; living in Hawaii versus New York; her views on the internment of Japanese Americans; how when she left Austria some of her possessions were destroyed and strip-searched in France; returning to Austria in 1959; and being in an Austrian club.

    Oral history interview with Katsugo Miho

    Oral history interview with Katsugo Miho

    Oral History

    Katsugo Miho, born in Maui, Hawaii, describes his Japanese parents; graduating high school in 1940 and beginning his university studies in 1941; being a member of the ROTC; volunteering for the army on December 7, 1941; being part of the Hawaiian Territorial Guard; how they were gathered in a school one morning and told that all Japanese Americans would be discharged because an American officer did not like the idea of Japanese Americans serving for the U.S. Army; working as a carpenter’s helper at the airfield; volunteering for the army in 1943 with his brother; going to Schofield and Camp Shelby; being in the artillery while his brother was in the medical section; how his father was picked up as an enemy alien in 1941, taken to a prison, then shipped to Sand Island, Honolulu, and sent to a prisoner of war camp in Alabama; the death of his brother in a bus accident when he visited their father; training until April 1944; visiting camps (possibly Japanese American internment camps); going to France and losing many men while trying to rescue a lost battalion from Texas; joining with the 7th Army and the 3rd Army; fighting battles in the German cities of Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg; seeing civilians with yellow stars on their clothes in Aachen, Germany; and witnessing a death march from Dachau and not knowing at the time that they were Jewish prisoners.

    Oral history interview with Yuzuru Morita

    Oral history interview with Yuzuru Morita

    Oral History

    Yuzuru Morita, born in Hawaii on May 8, 1917, describes his Japanese American parents; being age 24 and in the army when Pearl Harbor was attacked; working on a sugar plantation and factory, where there were Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese men working together; being assigned to the 395th Battalion at Diamond Head; handling all the outgoing military goods for the army; being at home during the attack on Pearl Harbor and having to get back to the base; his response to seeing Japanese flags on the attacking airplanes; staying in the army throughout the war and becoming a sergeant; how both of his brothers entered the army when the 442nd was formed; going to Camp Shelby; not encountering any racial prejudice, but how Japanese-American soldiers had their allegiance continually doubted; his daily duties in the camp; becoming part of the 527th Artillery; how his brothers also fought and survived the war; how his parents were proud of them for fighting; going to Germany and Italy; how German soldiers surrendered to them; seeing Jewish prisoners for the first time at Dachau and how he did not even know it was called Dachau until 1988 because no one ever talked about it; going to Bavaria, Germany after the war, where they remained as occupational troops; how his service in the army was appreciated by people when he returned to the U.S. and how he did not experience any racial prejudice; and his outlook on life.

    Oral history interview with Neil Nagareda

    Oral history interview with Neil Nagareda

    Oral History

    Neil Nagareda, born May 2, 1924 on Hawaii Island, Hawaii, describes living on a plantation with a mixture of Filipino, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish families; how there were no anti-Japanese feelings; hearing that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; how his parents were from Hiroshima , Japan; joining the army in 1943; being trained at Camp Shelby; how he was supposed to go to Camp Jerome but missed going; how his unit went to Europe; having no idea about the concentration camps when they came across Dachau; the conditions of the Jewish inmates; meeting up with the 522nd; how there were no orders as to what they should do at the camp nor with the prisoners; being a communications unit; leaving Germany in December 1945; the racism he experienced in Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, MS, and New York; not talking very much about his war experiences; and his advice to his children.

    Oral history interview with Barton Nagata

    Oral history interview with Barton Nagata

    Oral History

    Barton Nagata, born in Maui, Hawaii, describes his family; going to Grinnell College in Iowa; being drafted in 1942 and sent to Arkansas for basic training; asking to be transferred to the 442nd Battalion; being sent to Camp Shelby attached to the headquarters battery as a clerk; working in radio and in the foreign observatory team; seeing some action in Italy with the infantry; being Colonel Harrington's radio operator; his education at Grinnell College, where he did not experience any discrimination; being on guard duty when he was not needed as a radio operator on the Riviera in France; being detached from his unit and made a MP, guarding German prisoners and AWOL American prisoners near Nice, France; liberating French prisoners in Germany; seeing a death march near Munich, Germany, not realizing the prisoners were Jews, and giving them some food; going to Dachau; speaking about his experiences when he was a high school history teacher; the importance of education to prevent racism; being an active protestant; going to a British university; and telling his children about his experiences.

    Oral history interview with Armin Nagel

    Oral history interview with Armin Nagel

    Oral History

    Armin Nagel, born June 1920 in Breznov (possibly Brașov), Romania, describes his early life; learning Hungarian and attending Hebrew school; moving near the border of Romania; moving to Bucharest, Romania with his siblings; finishing high school in 1938; working as a photographer; working as a dentist’s assistant until 1940; how the Romanian Nazis became active in 1939; how his brother, who was a printer, secretly printed material against the Nazis; being mistaken as his brother and taken to a train to go to a concentration camp; going with 2,000 other Jews and non-Jews to Terazu, a work camp; conditions in the camp and making teeth out of bones to aid eating; how in 1942 all the Jews in the camp were taken to Varnecka (possibly Varnikai, Lithuania); learning later that experiments were being conducted at the camp, where prisoners were given poison in the food; how, as a dental assistant, he was able to smuggle medicines to the prisoners; being able to survive because he ate with the dentist; being in the camp from May 1941 to August 1944; being taken to another camp in Groslovo (Velyka Mykhaĭlivka, Ukraine), where he worked as a dental assistant for one year; walking 80 miles towards Romania and ending up in Tagena; how his brothers survived and went to Israel; joining his mother in Bucharest, where he worked and went to school for engineering; immigrating eventually to the United States and settling in Honolulu, Hawaii; and the number of Jewish Romanians who left for Israel.

    Oral history interview with Hideo Nakamine

    Oral history interview with Hideo Nakamine

    Oral History

    Hideo Nakamine, born in Paauilo, Hawaii and raised in Honokaa, HI, describes being in Honolulu, HI with his brother when Pearl Harbor was attacked; enlisting and joining the 442nd; going to Camp Shelby for training; being put into the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion; fighting in Italy and France and going into Germany at the end of the war; how the first camp he saw was in Bad Tölz, Germany; seeing approximately 5,000 prisoners being marched away from Dachau and how the German soldiers scattered when they saw the U.S. troops; how some of the soldiers gave food to the prisoners and how they had been ordered not to give food to anyone because they needed their rations; going through other German death camp areas in Horgau, Augsburg, and Munich; visiting the museum at Dachau during the 40th reunion; going to a gathering of Holocaust survivors in Philadelphia, PA in 1985; how his parents had been driven off the plantation where they worked for being of Japanese descent; and his views on freedom and prejudice.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Obayashi

    Oral history interview with Joseph Obayashi

    Oral History

    Joseph Obayashi, born on April 18, 1924 in Maui, Hawaii, describes growing up in a community called Whalo; how his father grew pineapples; how he felt that Japanese Americans were not discriminated against even after the attack on Pearl Harbor; enlisting into the 442nd; how he trusted the U.S. government when they relocated Japanese Americans to camps; training at Camp Shelby; being in the 3rd and 5th Divisions during the war; being shot down when he was in the 3rd Division; the captain of the 442nd, Captain Fiberman, and his squadron commander, James Harrison; landing in Italy in 1944; how his job was to carry a radio on his back to help with the intelligence of the 1st Division; how the 442nd and 100th (rifle company) never drew back; going through France then Germany; hearing rumors about the concentration camps; seeing a concentration camp and prisoners eating a dead horse; meeting former inmates in Germany in 1984; encountering inmates in other areas of Germany in 1945; and his outlook on life.

    Oral history interview with Otto Orenstein

    Oral history interview with Otto Orenstein

    Oral History

    Otto Orenstein, born in Vienna, Austria on July 16, 1921, describes his parents and their ancestry; his education in Vienna; not experiencing any antisemitism when he was young; how his family observed some holidays but was not very religious; leaving Vienna on December 28, 1938 for Cologne, Germany; making it across the Belgian border; how some Belgian farmers smuggled them to Brussels, Belgium and gave them money for railroad tickets; arriving in Antwerp, Belgium, where a relative lived; getting a visa to the United States, and arriving in the U.S. in April 1940; how the rest of his immediate family arrived in the following few months; how in July 1927 there had been riots at the Ministry Building in Vienna; his memories of political events and backlashes in 1932, 1934, and 1938; being a member of the Austrian boy scouts and being kicked out for being Jewish; his memories of the Anschluss and seeing Himmler and Goering; conditions during the Nazi occupation; getting kicked out of the apartment where his family had lived for 30 years and going to live with his grandmother; how his uncle committed suicide; getting rounded up with other Jews on November 11, 1938 and taken to an SS barracks; seeing a Portuguese temple burning; how he was let go because he was only 17 years old; his journey to Antwerp and his difficulty crossing the border; going to a detention camp in Belgium September 1939 until his visa came in March 1940; how his parents left from Norway; going to Honolulu with his family in July 1940 and how his parents had brought artifacts from Norway and were featured on the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser on July 16, 1940; how when he first arrived in New York he stayed at Stephen Weiss’s house, which was a temporary shelter for refugees; how his family was interned on Sand Island, HI as enemy aliens; how his mother ended up being the leader of the women’s side of the camp; the things he brought with him (birth certificate, train ticket from Brussels to Antwerp, student card, and passport); how he has talked to his family about his experiences; not experiencing any antisemitism in Honolulu; and some of his memories from 1938. The interviewee also shows a picture of his birth certificate and his student card.

    Oral history interview with members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

    Oral history interview with members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

    Oral History

    Members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion discuss their experiences as Japanese Americans when Pearl Harbor was attacked; deciding to join the army; the anti-Japanese sentiment in the press and the reactions of their peers; being evacuated from the west coast and waiting for Japanese American detainment camps to be built; people they knew whom were detained; the experiences of their families before the war; how many of their possessions were taken by the federal government; training at Camp Shelby; the status of family members as enemy aliens; Holocaust denial and Holocaust education; going to the military camp in Arkansas (possibly Camp Jerome); the confiscation of their diaries; their views on reparations for the Americans who were detained during WWII; their activities on the Western Front, including the detachment of the 522nd, how the artillery was often ahead of the infantry, and going through many towns; arriving at Dachau; seeing the prisoners and Reverend Martin Niemöller; not staying long at the camp; being ordered not to feed the camp survivors because they could not eat the food; passing a camp outside of Munich, Germany while they were scouting; seeing two dead horses and later seeing a group of prisoners gathered around eating them; feeding the survivors at their camp and speaking to some of them; seeing the gas chambers, crematoriums, and shooting sites at the camp; going to the displaced person camps and attending a wedding at one of them; going to a survivors' meeting in Philadelphia, PA; the irony of being a persecuted minority in America then helping a minority during the war; and the presence of prejudice organizations in the U.S.

    Panel discussion with Holocaust survivors and members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

    Panel discussion with Holocaust survivors and members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

    Oral History

    Holocaust survivors and members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion discuss the internment of enemy aliens in the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack; learning about the concentration camps in Europe; the experience of being a Japanese American after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; the experiences of Sarah Rozenberg, who lived in the Warsaw ghetto, was sent to the Majdanek concentration camp on April 23, 1943, worked in the ammunition factory, and was liberated by the Russian Army on January 15, 1945; Rozenberg’s experiences with the Germans and the brutality of the Jewish police as well as the underground activities in the Warsaw ghetto; and Holocaust education.

    Jewish/552nd Panel

    Jewish/552nd Panel

    Oral History

    Punchbowl Memorial

    Punchbowl Memorial

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sarah Rozenberg

    Oral history interview with Sarah Rozenberg

    Oral History

    Yom HaShoah

    Yom HaShoah

    Oral History

    The recording includes a service for Yom HaShoah during which Mayor Frank Fasi of Honolulu, HI; Chuck Freedman, director of communications in the office of the Hawaiian governor; Jacob Liebermann of the Jewish Federation of Honolulu; Gerald Clay, president of the Jewish Federation of Honolulu; and Judy Weightman honor the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust and thank those who helped save Jews and work to fight present-day Holocaust denial. The recording also includes a musical performance.

    Oral history interview with Gerda Samuel

    Oral history interview with Gerda Samuel

    Oral History

    Gerda Samuel, born in Hamburg, Germany in 1921, describes her father, who was a printer; attending a Jewish school for girls in 1931; how her father was taken by the SS in 1934 and she never saw him again; being sent to the ghetto; conditions in the ghetto; being sent to England in 1938; being adopted by a Jewish family in Belfast, Northern Ireland; never seeing her mother or aunt again; being raped by the son of her adopted family; joining the British Army in 1941; not hearing about the concentration camps until after the war; going to London, England to work as a waitress after she left the army; moving to Singapore in 1948; immigrating to the United States in 1952; her conversion to Catholicism; antisemitism in Hawaii; and her memories of the Depression.

    Oral history interview with John Sato

    Oral history interview with John Sato

    Oral History

    John Sato, born in the state of Washington in 1921, describes experiencing some discrimination as Japanese American when he went to a university in 1939; how his family was evacuated from their farm; living in the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho; conditions in the camp; volunteering for the army; going to Camp Shelby; being in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion; joining the air force intelligence; visiting his family in the camp; being transferred to the Hawaii Air Force Base for nine months; being sent to Guam; going on a bomb trip to Japan with scientists; and his life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Rudolf Schmerl

    Oral history interview with Rudolf Schmerl

    Oral History

    Rudolf Schmerl, born in August 1930 outside of Berlin, Germany, describes his family; moving to Berlin in 1935; his family history; experiencing antisemitism as a child from his peers; his view of Germans; wanting to leave Germany and having difficulty; how Germany defined his family as stateless; how his father went to the United States in1938 to work as a doctor; going with his mother and grandmother on a train illegally to Czechoslovakia; being beaten at his new school; going to Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) on August 31, 1938; getting measles on the ship heading to the United States; being detained on Ellis Island; living in Harlem, NY; how his grandmother never became a U.S. citizen; leaving New York in 1941 for Louisiana; seeing racism in New Orleans; moving to Toledo, OH, and seeing the segregation; the fates of his relatives in Germany; and the lessons of the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Jedidah Shashai

    Oral history interview with Jedidah Shashai

    Oral History

    Jedidah Shashai, born in Vienna, Austria on May 19, 1924, describes growing up in poverty in Vienna; having no Jewish school education; experiencing antisemitism; her father’s death when she was 12 years old; how the Nazis took many of their possessions; the uniforms of the women Nazis; how she had no connection with Judaism; wanting to be part of the mainstream and not being accepted; how the Nazis took her family’s business; how she went to Belgium and her sister and mother went to England; antisemitism in newspapers; wanting to go to Hawaii; getting out in a transport of children and feeling guilty because she was not a child; going to Belgium first then England; staying with different families in Belgium; being placed in a small village in England in 1939 by the Rotary and experiencing antisemitism; not experiencing antisemitism in Hawaii; and her approach to life.

    Oral history interview with Ignace Speiser

    Oral history interview with Ignace Speiser

    Oral History

    Ignace (né Yitzhak) Speiser, born January 5, 1908 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his second wife; studying in Paris, France after WWI; learning to play the mandolin and the violin; going to the consortium in Warsaw; being age 21 when he attended the Ecole de Musique in Paris; officially leaving Warsaw in 1931; his siblings and his parents; trying to leave France for the United States in 1939 but being prevented by the beginning of the war; being taken by the Germans from Toulouse, France in 1943; being sent to a concentration camp in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland; being asked to play his violin; how the inmates dug a tunnel, which was discovered; how all the imamates were deported to Auschwitz; being on the train with his friend, a cantor, who sang one symphony the whole ride; how people jumped off the train; how his wife was still in Toulouse; being separated from the others at Auschwitz because he was a musician; playing Ernest Bloch’s Baal Sham; going to Fürstengrube to work in a coal mine, but being separated as a musician with his opera singer friend; being beaten once; being in Birkenau for a few weeks; how a dentist would bring him food and ask him to play Mozart; having a birthday party in 1945; how he had been in Auschwitz for two years and Fürstengrube for one year; giving concerts once or twice a week in Fürstengrube; how after awhile he was not afraid of dying; selection processes; being removed from Auschwitz in January 1945 at which point they were walking and on the train; going to a place near Lübeck, Germany and being taken by the Red Cross to Sweden; the conditions on the train and the deaths during the journey; and his tattoo.

    Oral history interview with Louise Spitzer

    Oral history interview with Louise Spitzer

    Oral History

    Louise Spitzer, born December 6, 1916, in Vienna, Austria, describes her parents and childhood; going to Brussels, Belgium to perfect her French and graduating from hotel management school in 1938; life in Vienna and the intermingling of Jews and the Christians; how she had no antisemitic experiences in her childhood; wearing a three arrows patch to present herself as socialist in protest of Nazism; the death of her father; having boarders in their home beginning in 1938; being picked up by the Nazis to clean the synagogue; how the Nazis took all their linens and silverware, she went to the Nazi headquarters to demand it back, and they gave it back; going to work as a servant and later a nanny for a family in London, England; leaving on November 10, 1938; the deportation of her uncle to Dachau and the death of her mother in 1939; being beaten at the German border; staying with the English family’s children in Wales when the war broke out; returning to London to work in a secret factory until the end of the war; volunteering to help the Americans because she spoke German and being stationed in Germany in the censorship division; visiting her aunt and uncle in Vienna after they were released from Dachau; her interactions with the Russians upon her return to Germany; applying to go to the United States after she received British citizenship; leaving the army in 1948 and immigrating to the U.S.; working for American Express and Sabena; receiving some money from the Austrian government for confiscated belongings; and her views on antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

    Oral history interview with Richard Strauss

    Oral history interview with Richard Strauss

    Oral History

    Richard Strauss, born in Mainz, Germany in 1924, describes growing up in Germany and Italy; working for most of his life in the hotel food industry; attending a German public school; hearing antisemitism on occasion from his classmates; how his father was active in the Social Democratic party and was warned to leave on the night of the 1933 election, which he did; the camps near his town where dissidents were taken; how laws preventing Jews from attending high school began in 1935; his uncle’s wine exporting business, which he was allowed to continue operating despite the limits on Jewish businesses; his parents’ divorce; being socially shunned by non-Jewish friends in 1935; being sent to Besel, Switzerland to his father when their business was being reviewed; being placed in a boarding school in Italy from 1935 to 1938; returning to his mother in August 1938 when Mussolini enacted antisemitic laws; how his father went to Cuba and then Australia in 1940; how his mother’s attitude about remaining in Germany changed after Kristallnacht; how shop keepers would allow them to purchase items even though they had signs up banning Jewish customers; being hidden by a family friend who was a member of the Nazi Party, in a park the night of Kristallnacht; seeing the destruction of the city the next morning; how the thugs who committed the atrocities were brought in from another city; taking in homeless families because their home was intact; being on the English Rotary Club’s transport that got children out of Germany; going to Portsmouth, England and working as a window dresser’s apprentice; how his mother left Germany in November 1941 and went from Portugal to the United States; being interned on the Isle of Mann; being sent to Glasgow, Scotland and then transported to Australia; the conditions on the ship and the maltreatment of the refugees; being placed in an internment camp in Australia; sending a postcard to family friends in Australia, where his father also happened to be; being given the choice to return to England or join the Australian Army, and choosing the latter; joining in 1942 and becoming an interpreter at the rank of sergeant; guarding prisoners of war captured in North Africa that were interned in Australia; getting out of the army in 1947 and immigrating to the U.S. in December 1947; getting an apprenticeship at the Biltmore Hotel; going to California, Utah, Hawaii, and New York; his experiences guarding Italian and German prisoners and not telling them he was Jewish; witnessing some antisemitism in the U.S.; and his reflections on the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Billy Taylor

    Oral history interview with Billy Taylor

    Oral History

    Billy Taylor, born October 15, 1912 in Oklahoma, describes growing up on a farm in a suburb of Oklahoma City; attending the University of Oklahoma and studying petroleum engineering; joining the ROTC, working with the horse-drawn artillery; receiving his lieutenant's commission in 1935; working for the conservation corps in Oregon; getting married in 1938 and going to Texas; joining the armed forces in March 1941; going to Fort Sill to be an instructor; going to the 155 Howitzer Battalion; briefly being the captain of an Arkansas unit of the National Guard; being selected for secret duty at Camp Shelby, training Japanese American soldiers; how the men were loyal and they wanted to prove it; going to Italy; forming units at the University of Naples; going to combat north of Rome; his duties as well as the technical and logistical details of their campaign; going to Florence; how the unit was sent to Marseille, France but he got sick and was sent to the hospital; hitching a ride to Marseille a month later; experiencing their worst fighting in the Vosges Mountains; being assigned to rescue a battalion (131st Field Artillery, 2nd Battalion) in October 1944; emptying a brothel of women, who had been collaborating with the Germans; details about the rescue of the lost battalion and sustaining great casualties; the split of the 442nd and the 522nd; crossing the Rhine River at Worms, Germany; taking Mannheim, Germany; coming across a training camp for German youth and a compound of imported food; being northwest of Munich and Dachau and supporting the 101 Airborne; going to the Dachau concentration camp, which had been emptied of many prisoners; going to a meeting of units to discuss what they should do with the corpses; not staying at the camp for very long; the smell of the camp; heading south and finding a group of former Dachau prisoners in a village where they had been abandoned by the SS; seeing the survivors eating dead horses; the physical condition of the prisoners and their orders to not feed them; forming a camp for these people and sending many back to Poland; how the Russians were rough with the refugees; going north of Munich to search for SS troops; remaining in the reserve until 1954; receiving the Croix de Guerre from the French; working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs; how he is part Cherokee; how he never questioned the loyalty of his men in WWII but that at the beginning there was censoring of individual mail and some men were taken out of the unit; and his feelings about Dachau.

    Oral history interview with Ted Tsukiyama

    Oral history interview with Ted Tsukiyama

    Oral History

    Ted Tsukiyama describes the shock of the Pearl Harbor attacks, especially by Japanese Americans; being in the first ROTC unit to enter the war; being assigned to St. Louis to find paratroopers; becoming part of the territorial guard; never having a problem being Japanese American; being honorably discharged because of his Japanese heritage; going back to school; volunteering in a labor battalion, building defenses and serving for 11 months; how a few months later Japanese Americans were allowed in the armed forces; how his wife grew up in California and was put into a camp; being given intelligence training in Minnesota; being sent to Northern Burma Jungle as an intelligence translator for the Air Force; spending over a year, until end of war, in Northern Burma; going back to Hawaii; how he feels that the war experience countered prejudice towards Japanese Americans; and becoming a lawyer in labor relations.

    Oral history interview with Harold Ueoka

    Oral history interview with Harold Ueoka

    Oral History

    Harold Ueoka, born in Lawai, Hawaii in 1919, describes his Japanese parents; serving with the 526th Artillery Battalion; working in Honolulu before the Pearl Harbor attacks; how there was no real discrimination before war, except for his summer job working for a plantation; volunteering for the army when the war started; his memories of the Pearl Harbor attack; being head of the baseball team and how four of his teammates decided to join the army; how he felt that if he did not volunteer he would shame the people in Hawaii; how when his unit was in Europe, his destination was Hitler's home; seeing the crematoriums at Dachau and the places where people were shot; and how during the war he heard from other soldiers what was going on in the camps.

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