March 12, 1943 entry Item Info
March 12 (Friday)
The Military administration ordered us to send 24 people from each area every day to be engaged in cutting trees to produce logs to be used for the stoves this winter.
531
Their argument is that they are to be used by the internees, and it should be done by people deployed from among us. This type of labor is expected to be physically demanding, and it is an issue that the majority of the internees are elderly as we do not know if they are able to do it. It is also unclear that this can be categorized as labor different from Class 2. I heard the location is 17 miles away from the internment camp, and it is doubtful that the categorization is justifiable. Leader committee passed a resolution to sit on the labor order, and the representatives requested a meeting with Colonel Weaver to deliver their decision. The Colonel had the representatives over and immediately rejected the request stating there is no room for discussion about the labor order. The representatives returned and held another meeting, and they came to a decision to demand explanation and interpretation of the order by either inviting the representative of Spain and a provost marshal or by sending correspondence through them. They set 10 days of a waiting period and agreed unanimously to meanwhile cooperate with the military administration that it would be best for each of us to answer the call for labor. They asked each barracks to cast a yes or no vote, and we were requested to cast one vote from each barracks and deliver it to the leaders by 5 p.m. today. Different opinions were argued in our barracks, but we ended up deciding to vote yes.
532
That is because we heard the military administration will conduct a mandatory physical check and force labor upon us if the internees reject their order.
The above mentioned labor has to be interpreted to belong to Class 2 based on the Geneva Conventions. It does not seem that the director of the camp is capable of interpreting the conversions and has a wrong understanding that logs are the internees to use, and therefore it needs to be included in the duties to be done by us. A war is such a trouble as the enemy carries loaded guns and aims at us from above.
- Title:
- March 12, 1943 entry
- Creator:
- Sakaino, Bunro
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1943-03-12
- Description:
- March 12, 1943, diary entry written by Bunro Sakaino while he was incarcerated at Camp Livingston, near Pineville, Louisiana.
- Subjects:
- concentration camps diaries
- Location:
- Camp Livingston, LA
- Source:
- MG 387, George Shihei Shitamae papers, Special Collections and Archives, University of Idaho Library
- Translator:
- transcribed and translated by Naoko Tanabe, 2024-25, from Denso densho.org
- Source Identifier:
- mg387_1_7-1943-03-12
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Language:
- jpn
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Contact us about this record Library Help- Citation:
- "March 12, 1943 entry", Bunro Sakaino Concentration Camp Diary, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/sakaino/items/sakaino480.html
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