Topaz Internment Camp WWII

Sixteen miles northwest of Delta, the desert still holds the grid: concrete slabs, gravel streets, the footings of guard towers along a square mile once ringed with barbed wire. In April 1943 a sentry shot James Hatsuki Wakasa, sixty-three, as he walked near the fence; the killing was ruled justified. His friends built a memorial stone in defiance, then buried it when ordered to destroy it — and it lay hidden for nearly eighty years until its rediscovery in 2021. Two monuments stand here now, and nails in the dirt. Tread carefully.

What the plaque says

Site of Topaz Internment Camp Over 120,000 Japanese-Americans, two thirds of whom are U.S. citizens, are uprooted from their west coast homes and incarcerated by their own government. It is 1942, wartime hysteria is at a peak. They are imprisoned in ten inland concentration camps where they remain behind barbed wire, under suspicion and armed guards for up to 3 1/2 years. Topaz is one of the ten camps. Without hearings or trials, this act of injustice is based solely on the color of their skin and the country of their origin. America's fear and distrust of these citizens— precipitated by Japan's attack upon Pearl Harbor—is placated. Lost within this rush to judgment is the denial of constitutional rights, major losses of personal property and the labelling of its own citizens as enemy. Ironically, though this mass incarceration is spearheaded by thoughts of disloyalty, not a single case of espionage against the U.S. is ever discovered. Indeed, the 442nd RCT and 100th Battalion, composed entirely of young Japanese-American boys (many of whom volunteer from internment camps), suffer major war casualties and go on to become the U.S. Army's most highly-decorated combat unit in its history. Topaz is closed in October of 1945. The memory of Topaz remains a tribute to a people whose faith and loyalty was steadfast—while America's had faltered. Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz Internment Camp) has been designated a National Historic Landmark On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Without any judicial hearings and due process of law, more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were forcibly uprooted from their homes and taken under armed guard for relocation and detention in a system of assembly centers and internment camps. Over 8,100 Japanese Americans were confined here at Topaz, including Fred Korematsu and Mitsuye Endo, whose involvement in landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases challenged the constitutionality of the exclusion and relocation. In December 1944 the court held that "admittedly loyal" citizens could not be deprived of their liberty and held in relocation centers. This site possesses national significance in illustrating the history of the United States of America 2007 National Park Service United States Department of the Interior

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Topaz War Relocation Center — 0.5 mi
  The Sevier Desert camp where the United States imprisoned 11,000 Japanese Americans

More markers nearby

• All Gave Some - Some Gave All Monument — steps away
• Gunnison Massacre (2) Monuments — 9.5 mi
• Topaz War Relocation Center WWII — 12 mi
• Topaz Museum — 12 mi