Densho Digital Archive - Yooichi Wakamiya Interview (denshovh-wyooichi-01-0014)

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RP: What are your first most vivid memories of coming into Rohwer, the landscape? What caught your attention?

YW: Trees. We got into an area in the southeast part of Arkansas, it was pretty much wooded and swampland, so we ended up in the middle of a cotton field, next to a cotton field. One side was open cotton field, the other side was something that the government leased from the owner of the land down there. And the size of the camp was one square mile, one by one, and then it was all fenced in with barbed wire. I remember the guard towers again. They were armed guards. I don't know whether it was every quarter mile or every half mile, but they had guard towers. And we were taken to the administration building (where) they unloaded us onto these trucks, processed us, and said, "This bunch goes to this block," so we ended up going to the block, and when we got there we went to a particular barrack where they had assignments for each family. And so I ended up in Block 16, Barrack 1, Unit D. I remember that. And the kitchen was communal, but we had to provide our own cooks, and the fuel they used was coal. I never knew that you could burn rocks. It's the first time I saw that, and I was wondering what that pile of rocks was. They said, "That's coal." I said, "What's coal?" And so that was my introduction to coal burning. And then they said you could also get those coal with your bucket and take it back to your barracks where you have a potbellied stove, and that's what you feed it with. No wood, just that. So we were burning coal for our heat.

RP: Was there, there was your parents, you, and your younger brother. Were, when you first got there and were assigned to your barrack room, was there another family also placed in there as well?

YW: No, we were, each family was assigned a unit depending on their size. Now, the barracks had, let's see, I think eight units. The end units were the biggest, and then the one next to them were, were small units for two people, and then the next unit was our size and it was, it was typically for four people, and then you flip it over and it's the same the other way. So you had, I think, eight units in our barracks, and each one had a potbellied stove, each one had beds, if you will, if you can call 'em beds. They were just cots.

RP: Did you have to stuff your mattresses with straw again?

YW: I think these were a little better that way. I don't think they, we had to stuff these. I think they were stuffed already with something else. I think ordinary mattresses. That was it. And then you had to, I think we brought our own bedding. That was about it. And so, then there's a little closet in the corner where you can hang your clothes, a little space there. And that was about it.

RP: One big open room, no partitions?

YW: No partitions or nothing, and what you did was, this is where you slept and stayed during the day unless you wandered around, and then they had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the, at the block communal kitchen, manned by the internees, if you will.