ARKANSAS SIGHTSEEING: Rohwer Japanese-American Relocation

Center now a monument to its captives

ROHWER — When World War II combat ended 77 years ago this month, many of the 8,300
internees who'd been confined behind barbed wire three years earlier at Rohwer Japanese-
American Relocation Center had already departed. Thirty-one of them are honored by name
on monuments at this haunting Desha County site.

Those 31 men were among the 156 Rohwer captives who'd volunteered for the U.S. Army's
442nd Regimental Combat Team, a Japanese-American unit ranked as the most highly
decorated in American military history.

All were enlisted men: privates, corporals, sergeants. They died in France and Italy, fighting
Nazi and Fascist enemies on behalf of the nation that had forcibly exiled them from their
West Coast homes to rural Arkansas.

In total, 121,000 people of Japanese ancestry had been shipped to 10 such camps west of
the Mississippi River, including a second Arkansas location at Jerome. The mass transfer,
authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is considered one of the most egregious
U.S. government actions of the war.

An American flag flies over monuments at Rohwer Relocation Center. (Special to the
Democrat-Gazette/Marcia Schnedler) Most any day, visitors who stop at the Rohwer site
are likely to have the memorial to themselves — a solitude that enhances the dolor of the
setting. A copy of a guard tower at the entrance reinforces the fact that this was a place of
involuntary confinement.

One information panel offers comments from Rohwer's best-known alumnus, George Takei,
famed for his "Star Trek" role as USS Enterprise helmsman Mr. Sulu. He was sent to the
camp at age 5 with his family.

Takei remembers reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at school while looking out
at the surrounding barbed wire. He describes his family's forcible shipment here from
California as "the most defining moment of my life. We were imprisoned because of fears,
misunderstanding and racial prejudice."

The 31 war dead among Rohwer's alumni are listed on a concrete memorial built in 1945 to
resemble an Army tank. An inscription reads: "In memory of our sons who sacrificed their
lives in the service of their country. They fought for freedom. They died that the world might
have peace."

George Takei (center) is the best known of Rohwer’s 8,300 internees. (Special to the
Democrat-Gazette/Marcia Schnedler) The same 31 names are engraved on a nearby
granite memorial dedicated in 1982. It was suggested by former resident Sam Yada, who
was concerned that the original monuments were deteriorating. He wanted a material more
durable than concrete to preserve the memory of the fallen Japanese-Americans.

Also at the site are 24 headstones marking the burials of civilians who died here. Another
monument has a square base supporting an obelisk surmounted by a globe and eagle.
Urns are placed at its four corners, while inscriptions in two languages adorn the sides. One
in Japanese translates as: "May the people of Arkansas keep in beauty and reverence
forever this ground where our bodies sleep."

Near Rohwer Relocation Center, whose buildings were

removed or demolished after 1945, information panels along
the Delta Heritage Trail bicycle path provide more details on
the camp. At Jerome, on the border of Drew and Chicot
counties, a lone memorial marks the location of that World
War II site.
Fleshing out the history of the Rohwer and Jerome camps is
the Japanese American Internment Museum, opened in 2013
in McGehee. A museum tour provides useful background
before visitors drive the dozen miles northeast on Arkansas
1 to Rohwer.
George Takei (center) is the best known of Rohwer’s 8,300 internees. (Special to the
Democrat-Gazette/Marcia Schnedler) The same 31 names are engraved on a nearby
granite memorial dedicated in 1982. It was suggested by former resident Sam Yada, who
was concerned that the original monuments were deteriorating. He wanted a material more
durable than concrete to preserve the memory of the fallen Japanese-Americans.