<Begin Segment 10>

DM: And then where did you go after Tanforan?

BS: After Tanforan we were loaded again on a bus to a train depot, and loaded on a train to a place called Topaz, Utah.

DM: What was that train ride like?

BS: We were, it was no, I can tell you, it was no modern Pullman. [Laughs] Narrow chairs, but we were, all I remember is we were instructed to close the shades of all of our windows, and we didn't know where we were going. And we don't know whether the, close the shade meant that they didn't want us to look out, or they didn't want people to look in, or I don't know. But we didn't know where we were going.

DM: And how long was that train ride?

BS: The train ride was about three days... two days, about two-and-a-half days.

DM: The mood in the train must have been very somber since you're heading off into the unknown.

BS: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was somber. And I, I must have, as a young kid then, I must have somehow just slept most of the time or something. I can't remember that train ride, all I remember is is getting on, closing the shades and the windows and arriving at Topaz.

DM: So you arrived at Topaz, I guess they must have told you you could step off the train or open the shades or something, and what did you, what was that like?

BS: From, from Topaz, we got on a bus. We still didn't know, I don't know what city it was that we got off, and it was, it was... and then we got on a bus, and then the bus took us to the camp, and it was middle of nowhere.

DM: What did it look like?

BS: Well, the first thing that came to my mind that was very disturbing was there were four sentries in this barbed wire camp, and if they were, if the government were, built these camps for our own protection, the four sentries that I saw up there would have had their rifles facing outside. But no, they were facing inside, and that disturbed me a little bit.

DM: So when you arrived at Topaz, was there a barbed wire fence already erected?

BS: Oh, yes. Big, tall barbed wire fence erected all the way around.

DM: So what do you remember most vividly about the living conditions at Topaz?

BS: I, I would say that it was... if anybody was asked to live in that condition today, why, it would be described very humiliating and almost a torture, yeah. All you had was four walls and a window, and no insulation, tarpapers as the insulation. But we made it work somehow. At least, at least it was built new, so there was, it was a complete different aroma to the Tanforan horse stall. It was aroma of fresh tarpaper and fresh lumber.

DM: What was the climate like in Utah?

BS: At that time when we got there in April it was still cold. Cold and the wind, dust blowin' every day.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.