Located five miles west of the Mississippi River in Arkansas, the Rohwer Relocation Center was near the town of McGehee and 110 miles southeast of Little Rock. The region is mostly wooded swampland with canals, bayous and creeks running through it. The weather is hot and humid and much of the area is under swampy bayou water during the spring, so mosquitoes and chiggers were a huge problem for the residents of the camp.

The camp was about 30 miles south of the Jerome Relocation Center. Like Jerome, the reserve was on 10,000 acres of public land originally planned for subsistence homesteads under the Farm Security Administration. Both Arkansas relocation centers were located in poverty-stricken areas, and officials had hoped that the centers would boost the local economy. This did not happen, and some local residents became resentful of the evacuees' access to meals and health care. But Japanese Americans removed from their homes on the West Coast had to endure an uncomfortable, three-day train ride with the window shades pulled down until they reached Arkansas. Rohwer’s population peaked at 8,475 in March 1943, and later took in many of the residents from nearby Jerome Relocation Center, which was shut down and converted into a German POW camp in November 1944.

Construction of the 500-acre central area began on July 1, 1942. The heavily forested land had to be cleared before the construction could begin, and internees were paid $12 a month to cut down trees. But conflicts with the local residents, similar to those at Jerome, happened here as well. At one point, locals marched an entire work crew of internees to the town jail at gunpoint, where they were held until the project director came to bail them out. They believed that the internees were Japanese paratroopers.

The Rohwer Relocation Center opened on September 18, 1942. It was divided into 51 blocks that included 620 buildings surrounded by a barbed wire fence, a patrol road, and eight watch towers. The southern two-thirds of the central area were residential blocks. The administration and hospital areas were located on the west side, and the military police compound was along the east boundary just south of the main entrance. Shops and services, including a post office, provided the internees with necessities. The camp also housed a sawmill and a cannery operated by the internees.

Each residential block had twelve barracks, a recreation building, a mess hall, and a combined bathroom and laundry building. Many internees planted gardens to make their living quarters more bearable. Recreation buildings were used for stores, churches, movies, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, a toy library, and the YWCA. Sports, recreational activities, and hobbies, such as judo, boxing, weaving, and sewing were popular. Two entire blocks and some surrounding buildings were used for the elementary and high schools, an auditorium, a library, and the school shop.

Many of the Japanese-American soldiers of the 442^nd and 100^th Regimental Combat Teams were stationed at nearby Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Because they were barred from social activities at the USO in Mississippi, they regularly visited the USO in Denson, where they were greeted by residents of the Rohwer and Jerome camps. It was there that the soldiers could enjoy Japanese food, participate in recreational activities and relax in a homey atmosphere despite the difficult living conditions of the camp. In all, 274 men from Rohwer and Jerome served in the U.S. Army.

The camp’s residents were constantly dealing with muddy conditions, so drainage ditches were built around each block. Wooden sidewalks were constructed between the barracks, but some sections were especially low and flooding would rise above the level of the sidewalks. Sometimes buildings had to be sandbagged to prevent them from being flooded.

Outside the fenced central area the evacuees cleared land for farming but because of the irregular weather, farming was difficult despite relatively fertile soil. But the Rohwer and Jerome relocation centers managed to grow 85 percent of their own vegetables. In 1943, 610 acres were under cultivation, which expanded to 577 acres the following year. Internees also raised hogs and chickens for their own consumption.

Today the remaining landmarks at the camp site include the abandoned brick smokestack and the cemetery with its 24 concrete gravestones. Two restored monuments, originally built by the internees, also exist. The first, in the shape of a military tank, is dedicated to the Japanese Americans in the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who were killed in Italy and France. The other commemorates the 24 internees who died while living in the camp. The latter’s inscription in English reads, "Erected by the inhabitants of Rohwer Relocation Center October 1944." The inscription in Japanese reads: "May the people of Arkansas keep in beauty and reverence forever this ground where our bodies sleep."

Two newer monuments were erected in 1982. The first pays tribute to the 442nd Regiment and the 100th Battalion and lists the names of the 31 men who died fighting for their country. The second commemorates the relocation center itself. The Rohwer Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.

 

References

Burton, Jeffery F.; Farrell, Mary M.; Lord, Florence B.; Lord, Richard W. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites, Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, Publications in Anthropology 74, 1999.

City of McGehee website: http://www.cityofmcgehee.com/

Girdner, Audrie and Loftis, Anne. The Great Betrayal, Toronto: Macmillan, 1969

Niiya, Brian. Japanese American History: An A to Z Reference, 1868 to the Present, New York: Facts on File, 1993.

Yumiba, Carole Katsuko. "An Educational History of the War Relocation Centers at Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas, 1942- 1945." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 69 (Summer 1989); pp. 169- 96.

Reprinted with permission from "Echoes of Silence:  The Untold Stories of the Nisei Soldiers Who Served in WWII" with thanks to the AJA WWII Memorial Alliance educational project who produced the CD.