The Camp in Arkansas Where Japanese Americans Were Held — and German POWs Were Welcomed

Описание: In October 1942, more than 8,000 Japanese Americans—most of them U.S. citizens—arrived at the Jerome War Relocation Center in the Arkansas Delta. They had been forcibly removed from their homes on the West Coast and imprisoned without trial, without charges, without evidence of wrongdoing. Their only crime was their ancestry.

This documentary examines the Jerome War Relocation Center and its transformation into Camp Dermott, a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers. It explores a troubling contradiction: Japanese American citizens who volunteered to work for local Arkansas farmers faced rejection, while German prisoners—actual enemy combatants who had fought against American forces—were welcomed to work the same fields.

The story reveals the racial dynamics that governed wartime Arkansas, where Governor Homer Adkins and the state legislature passed laws to prevent Japanese Americans from owning land, where violent incidents against internees went unprosecuted, and where citizenship offered no protection against prejudice. When Jerome closed in June 1944, German POWs arrived at the same location. These enemy soldiers received wages, decent treatment, and formed genuine friendships with the farmers who employed them—relationships that continued long after the war ended.

Through the lens of Jerome and Camp Dermott, this documentary examines how race, not security, determined who was imprisoned and who was welcomed in wartime America. It traces the experiences of those held behind barbed wire, the decisions of Arkansas officials and farmers, and the erasure of this history from the landscape itself.

Today, the land grows rice and soybeans. Most who pass by have no idea what occurred there. But the story demands remembering.