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BN: I'm gonna switch subjects now, and I don't know to what extent you would know this, but, of course, one of the seminal, important episodes of the camp was the whole "loyalty questionnaire" episode, and you and your brother were too young for this, but were you aware that was going on and was it an issue with your family, with your parents, aunts and uncles?

HK: Knew nothing about it. And so apparently, because my folks were not connected with any Japanese or JA organizations, so I don't know if they were ever involved with the "loyalty questionnaire."

BN: So there was no discussion or anything about that that you heard.

HK: Nothing, not a word about it.

BN: Did you have any relatives, any cousins or whatever who were, like, draft age and for military service when it became an issue?

HK: No, nothing.

BN: That wasn't really an issue for your family.

HK: Nothing special.

BN: Another thing I want to ask you is, at many of the camps, the borders were sort of permeable. I mean, people were able to get out and explore and fish and do other things. What was it like at Heart Mountain? Were you able to go outside at any time, or was it pretty hard to get out?

HK: Oh. I can remember one time -- so probably had to be at least '44, maybe '45 when we were allowed to go out for a day. And I can remember that I was able to get out and went down to the local town called Cody. And so spent, I don't know, part of a day there in Cody, walked around. I can remember going into the museum. So it's the same museum that's there now, but the museum there now is world class. So the museum when I went into it in '44 or '45 was just a little dinky museum. But I remember walking in there, had no problems. And I did not recall any discrimination incidents with me. I just remember people seeing the signs about "No Japs Allowed," but I was able to avoid any of that. And also in '44 (or) '45, the regulations really relaxed. I remember my whole family, we got like a weekend pass. And so we left the camp, and I don't know how we got to Billings, Montana, which was a close by town, just on the other side of the border. And so we spent at least one night in a nice, big hotel in Billings. And I know we went to a movie, I remember seeing a movie, I don't what the movie was. But I know we spent at least one night in Billings, Montana, and then we came back to the camp.

BN: So these were kind of, you got passes and sanctioned leave. I'm wondering if there were, how hard it was to just kind of sneak out to do things on the outside, if you did that, or if you knew people who did that commonly?

HK: Oh, and the Heart Mountain camp, because it was little or no problems, after about a year (with) the guard towers, they were empty. And so if you wanted to, you just stretch the barbed wire a little bit, you can climb, there was enough space you could climb through the barbed wire fence. And so we would go out hiking or whatever. In the wintertime, because where we lived, we were on the northwest corner of the camp, and there was a small hill. And if it snowed, there was a nice hill there covered with snow, and I guess through Sears Roebuck, we ordered sleds or toboggans. And so we'd go out there and ride down the hill on our toboggan.

BN: So yes, I guess it sounds like security really got much more relaxed as time went on.

HK: Yes.

BN: There was an incident at Heart Mountain, right, where some kids were, were they fired on or whatever for sledding outside the fence, early on.

HK: They were fired on?

BN: I thought so. I don't remember the details now, but this was very early on, in '42, and things were very different, I guess, that you're describing.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.