JOURNEY of CONSCIENCE
Visiting the WWII Japanese American Internment Camps
Remnants
Remnant: a small remaining quantity of something. I’m walking along the 1 1/2 mile path that the NPS built on the 400 acre site at Minidoka. All along the path there are 4×4 posts driven into the ground, topped with small metal placards that indicate what had once been on each particular spot.
The sign posts leave us to imagine what it was and how people might have experienced that particular spot during three years of incarceration.
Official vehicles visited this spot frequently, the site of the camp gas station. Cars and trucks moved about the camp, some bringing food supplies for the mess halls, others shuttling camp administrators around the 33,000 acre site, still others bringing in crops from the field.
A portion of an unknown structure sat upon this huge pier.
These pieces of concrete that were once the foundation, floor, and bits of structure of the old warehouse office, are all that remain. We are left to imagine the work that took place in the building – part of the banal organization required to imprison over 9,000 men, women, and children at Minidoka.
Massive piers held the giant water tower that once stood behind the fire station.
These remnants all around Minidoka beckon us. They call upon us to discover what was here, and what happened here in our name. Perhaps, they inspire us to understand why it all happened and to wonder, “Could it happen again?”
Grace and peace to you,
Art
JOURNEY of CONSCIENCE 