Minidoka Concentration Camp
"... these people are living in the midst of a desert where they see nothing except tar paper covered barracks, sagebrush, and rocks. No flowers, no trees, no shrubs, no grass. The impact of emotional disturbance as a result of the evacuation . . . plus this dull, dreary existence in a desert region surely must give these people a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and despair which we on the outside do not and will never fully understand."
- Arthur Klienkopf, Superintendent of Education-Minidoka Relocation Center Relocation Center Diary
About 18 miles northeast of Twin Falls, stands a lone lava rock chimney tower and portions of a building wall; these building remnants are the most conspicuous remains of the “Minidoka War Relocation Center”; a WWII American concentration camp where almost 14,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated between 1942 and 1945. These American "sites of shame" are a stark and solemn reminder of a disturbing chapter in American history.
Minidoka Concentration Camp
The historic "Minidoka War Relocation Center" or concentration camp was located in the high desert of South Central Idaho. The first people from the temporary detention centers arrived by train in August 1942. Most of those incarcerated at Minidoka came from the verdant Pacific Northwest and were shocked by the desolate expanses of sagebrush and lava rock. The Bureau of Land Reclamation proposed Minidoka to the War Relocation Authority because they wanted labor to clear the nearby land, build irrigation canals, and help farmers with the sugar beet, onion, and potato harvests.
Over 13,000 Japanese Americans and Native Alaskans from Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and California were confined at Minidoka – some for nearly four years. The Center's population peaked at 9,397 people, making the concentration camp Idaho's 7th largest city. Approximately sixty percent of Minidoka's Japanese Americans were Nisei, U.S. born and citizens by birth, and the remaining forty percent were Issei, with a small percentage of Sansei, or third generation, children. School started at Minidoka in 1942 with 272 nursery school students, 775 elementary school students, and 1,313 high school students.
Minidoka encompassed 33,000 acres, with its administrative and residential facilities approximately 946 acres. The barracks at Minidoka stretched over three miles in length and one mile wide and contained 36 residential blocks. Each residential block housed approximately 300 people in twelve tar paper barracks.
Living conditions were harsh and the quarters cramped. An entire family shared one room with little privacy and hung blankets to create makeshift walls. Families received Army issue cots and a pot-bellied stove for burning coal and sagebrush; any additional furnishings often consisted of furniture made from scrap lumber. An entire block of people ate in one dining hall and shared one laundry building with communal showers and toilets. In an effort to make their living conditions more tolerable, people planted gardens and established routines of daily life in an attempt to create a sense of normalcy for themselves and their children. Minidoka eventually held two elementary schools, a high school, a library, a hospital, fire stations, a warehouse area, a newspaper, bands, choirs, orchestras, and sports teams.