No excuse for camps

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was a month and a half ago, and before we forget the Holocaust for another year, let us consider concentration camps.

Most lexicon definitions describe concentration camps as places where populations of undesirable minorities or political enemies are “concentrated” for imprisonment. During World War II, Japanese Americans were concentrated into camps like that in Rohwer, Ark. Hollywood actor George Takei says that he was lucky to have stayed with this parents during his internment at Rohwer. For the past year, Takei has been speaking to National Public Radio and various forums. He even has an illustrated book about his concentration camp experience, They Called Us ‘Enemy,’ that the Latino children being separated at the U.S.-Mexico border may find interesting.

In various interviews, Takei has defined U.S. immigration detention centers as “concentration camps” where populations of Latino children are concentrated for long periods of detention. Takei goes on to say the Holocaust camps of WWII were better defined as “death camps” because Jews were sent there to die. By comparison, the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during WWII eventually ended, the prisoners were released, and the children were allowed to remain with their parents.

Today, Latino children are being taken from their parents who commit the misdemeanor offense of crossing the border in the wrong place. There is no excuse for concentration camps, and we know it.

GENE MASON Jacksonville