Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Gene Akutsu Interview
Narrator: Gene Akutsu
Interviewers: Larry Hashima (primary), Stephen Fugita (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: July 25, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-agene-01-0020

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LH: I was going to go back to the trial a little bit and sort of talk about, even after the trial, after you had been convicted and put in this holding tank, what were you... did you know what was going to happen to you then? Had they already made the sentence or were they sort of figuring well, this was done so now we're going to go somewhere else?

GA: Well, if, if everything held to the same pattern as the Heart Mountain boys, why that would be it and found guilty, they will give us our sentence and we were going to be sent wherever they thought they would like to have us go and serve our time. One by one, we were returned back to the courtroom to face the judge where he started to name off the penalty and they gave me a sentence of three years and three months in the penitentiary. As did many of the majority of them; I think a couple of 'em had changed their mind and they decided to, to go to the service so they were given their leave but the remaining thirty-two, I believe it was, wound up with -- majority of 'em -- same sentence as me, and there's a couple of 'em that had, I think two years, two months sentence.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.