Readers React: Looking back at the horrors of Japanese internment

To the editor: Almost 70 years ago when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, I was walking home from school with my friend Ned. He told me he and his family had been in a prison camp because they were Japanese. I called him a liar and said I didn’t believe him. (“The ugly history of Japanese internment at Tule Lake,” editorial, Dec. 23)

That night my father corroborated Ned’s story.

I don’t remember if I apologized to Ned or if we were taught about the incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry in school. Thanks to Ned and my father, I learned a history lesson. Plus, I owe Ned an apology for calling him a liar.

Murray S. Sperber, Los Angeles

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To the editor: It is interesting to note that the Army’s 442nd Regiment, the most decorated unit of its size in the history of American warfare, was entirely made up of men from the families interred in camps set up for Japanese Americans.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the properties of those interred were basically confiscated. In many cases, their possessions were hastily sold for a fraction of what they were worth. Surely, some of these items are extremely valuable today.

Wallace G. Smith, Calabasas

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