Backlash cancels auction of Japanese internment camp items

These items belong with the families, or in museums so future generations can learn from them.” (Democratic Rep. Mike Honda)

The U.S. west coast has some outstanding museums and exhibits dedicated to the Nikkei WWII experience. I hope these items end up in that sort of setting.

One such museum that immediately comes to mind is the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland, Oregon: http://www.oregonnikkei.org/

Meanwhile you can buy civil war slave and nazi artifacts on Ebay.

I hope those photographs go to some Japanese American cultural museum. A great museum is the one in San Jose Japan town we visited many years ago on a trip along the west coast of the USA. I personally have met many Japanese Americans who were born in those internment camps and now are 70+ years older, one woman was born in a horse stall at what was Tanforan race track in San Bruno, California. America, the USA did many really bad things to all sorts of people inside it's borders and has no right to go around preaching to other cultures or countries about oppression.

Good deal. This is the right decision. Just because others profit from misery is no reason everyone should when there are decent people able to speak up and put a stop to it.

Hawkeye: America, the USA did many really bad things to all sorts of people inside it's borders and has no right to go around preaching to other cultures or countries about oppression.

I'm thankful the world doesn't follow your logic as all countries have done some pretty nasty things at some point in their past.

“We know that it was a disgraceful period in American history, but we did not understand the continued emotional impact embodied within the material. We just didn’t get it.”

Good on you mate. Any chance that kind of thinking could permeate in Japan?

It's the right decision. Hopefully Japan would be equally sensitive about their actions in WWII. I think I will get thumbed down by various right wingers, but I'm calling a spade a spade.

I would think that not all of these items have a high price value, but what they represent as a small piece of history is invaluable and it would be hard to put a price on them, I would like to think that they could be put on display in a history museum so that 1000,s of people can look, appreciate, reflect over these items. in these time where money is king, Mr Rago did the right thing in declining to sell them.

"That belongs in a museum!" -- Indiana ... I agree.

Why are these people so insensitive and complaining about the past when they should just forget about it, move on, and love the US already! The people weren't FORCED into camps! They volunteered! They were already compensated by the government, so they should be quiet already!

Fortunately, when it comes to history this auction house, albeit due to pressure, ultimately addressed the feelings of survivors and others and decided to end the auction. And the sarcasm above in pointing out the double standards of some takes by certain nations on history as opposed to others, I fully agree that the auction was a little insensitive, and agree with those posters that items like this should be given to museums here or elsewhere and used to educate and show people to NEVER forget that period of inhumanity in American and Canadian history.

It's nice to see Honda not being accused of attacking the culture here when he wants certain events in the past to be addressed.

The headline is inadvertently off. Those were not Japanese internment camps. They were American interment camps that held Japanese-Americans as well as German-Americans and Italian-Amerians. I perfectly agree that this auction was insensitive. At the same time I am wondering if there any items from European-Americans who were interned (and who have received no compensation).

Anyway, good for the Japanese-American protests. Someone's pain should not be treated as memorabilia.

Disgusting! Disrespectful! Disgraceful!