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Submitted: 11/2/08 • Approved: 11/3/08 • Last Updated: 7/21/12 • R91474-G0-S3
The Rohwer Relocation Center was one of two centers established in Arkansas during World War II to incarcerate Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. The other was the Jerome Relocation Center in Chicot and Drew Counties. The only part of the Center that remains is the cemetery where the prisoners that died during incarceration are buried. The Cemetery is now a National Historic Landmark and contains several memorials to the Japanese prisoners. The camp operated from September 18, 1942 until November 30, 1945 and was one of the last of the ten nationwide centers to close. Of all the Japanese people that were imprisoned, a full sixty-four percent were American citizens. The camp consisted of 500 acres of tarpapered, A-frame buildings arranged into numbered blocks. Each block was designed to house approximately 300 people in ten to fourteen barracks with each barracks containing four to six apartments for the Japanese-American families. There was no plumbing and they were heated by wood or coal stoves. Each block had a mess hall, recreation facility and a common latrine. The facility was surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers and was guarded by a small military contingent. The Rohwer National Historic Landmark, added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 30, 1974, contains several monuments made by inmates during their internment, including one that honors Japanese American youth who died fighting for America in World War II, a small cemetery, and the remnants of the hospital smoke stack.
ref http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=369 (quoted as of November 1, 2008.)
Contributed on 11/2/08 by tomtodd
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Record #: 91474