Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Tokio Yamane Interview
Narrator: Tokio Yamane
Interviewers: Sachiko Takita-Ishii, Yoko Murakawa, Noriko Kawakami
Location: Japan
Date: May 23, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-ytokio-01-0009

<Begin Segment 9>

[Translated from Japanese]

I2: You had some kind of a map of the stockade yesterday.

TY: Where did I put it? Take any resources you need. I will eventually die. [Laughs] I don't need to bring these materials to the other side.

I2: You should tell your grandchildren how important the documents are, so they will not throw them away. [Laughs]

TY: Is this it?

I2: Not that one.

I1: The drawing you did...

I2: It is of the stockade...

I1: There were four buildings and a mess hall ...

I2: There was a mess hall.

I1: It was an A-4 paper size document.

TY: Is this it?

I2: That's it. Which building in this stockade map were you in?

TY: This one. We were in this one.

I1: This one? How big was it, and how many people were in it?

TY: Beds were placed like this. It must have been twice as long as this.

I1: Is that the size of one building? Lengthwise?

TY: It extended this way. There were 25 beds lined up in a row on each side with space in between.

I1: It must have been a long building.

TY: It was a long building. Well, these were barracks.

I1: Originally?

TY: These buildings were barracks for soldiers to stay.

I1: They threw out the soldiers.

TY: They threw them out and built the stockade.

I1: So, they enclosed one part of the barracks and turned it into the stockade.

I2: There were, one, two, three, four, five, five barracks, and each barrack had fifty beds?

TY: Fifty beds.

I2: So, that would be...

TY: 250 beds.

I2: 250 beds. So, about the same number of people as beds were there? One bed per person?

TY: Right.

I2: Everyone misunderstood this as well. People didn't understand how 250 people were put together in a jail.

TY: Soldiers used to live in these buildings. It was nothing like the bullpen. They were actual buildings with windows and doors.

I1: What about heating?

TY: There were heaters with coals.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright (c) 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.