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What are the similarities and differences in the living conditions between Night and Farewell to Manzanar?

Night and Farewell to Manzanar are two memoirs written by individuals persecuted during the Second World War. For an American, it is eerie to see the similarities between a concentration camp like Auschwitz and Manzanar: barbed wire fences, armed soldiers, and long rows of bunkhouses. Yet for the people inside, the living conditions in these two places were widely different.


In Auschwitz, the goal was to exterminate the Jewish race and others the Nazis found...

Night and Farewell to Manzanar are two memoirs written by individuals persecuted during the Second World War. For an American, it is eerie to see the similarities between a concentration camp like Auschwitz and Manzanar: barbed wire fences, armed soldiers, and long rows of bunkhouses. Yet for the people inside, the living conditions in these two places were widely different.


In Auschwitz, the goal was to exterminate the Jewish race and others the Nazis found unacceptable. Some were immediately sent to the gas chamber and crematorium, while others were worked to death over a series of weeks or months. In Manzanar and other internment camps in the United States, the goal was to contain Japanese residents until the end of the war. Clothes and food were provided, along with education for children.


That is not to say, though, that living conditions in Manzanar were anything close to ideal. Thin shacks provided by the American military offered little protection against the cold desert nights. Restrooms and other sanitary accommodations were poor at the best of times. Also, as Jews in Europe experienced, Japanese Americans were forced to sell their homes, businesses, and other belongings before they were ‘deported’ to Manzanar or other camps.


Though very few people died as a result of internment, the similarities between Nazi concentration camps and American internment camps is an unsettling reminder about the power and destructive nature of racism.

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