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The Journeyof the
Kashiwagi Siblings
Bob, George, June and Tom
Christine Umeda
Incarceration to Liberation
Tatsu and Frank
Kashiwagi
George, Robert and Chiyo Kashiwagi - Hayward, CA -
1926
Amache, Colorado – Granada Relocation Center
100/442nd RegimentalCombat Team (RCT)
U. S. Army made up of Americansof Japanese ancestry
442nd Infantry Regiment 100th Infantry Battalion 552nd Field Artillery Battalion 232nd Combat Engineer
Company
1943 volunteered
442nd RCT,552nd Field
Artillery Battalion
George Kashiwagi
1943 volunteered – 442nd Infantry Regiment,1st Platoon, Company K
Robert Kashiwagi
November 1943 -
U.S. Army Nurses Corps
Iseko June Kashiwagi
1944 - drafted General Patton’s,
3rd Armored Battalion,
(tank division)
Tom Kashiwagi
552nd Field Artillery Battalion - Fastest/most accurate fire - US Army
Late April 1945 - forward observers – opened path through enemy positions –
supported 7 different Army Divisions/units
April 29, 1945 Liberation of Dachau Sub-Camp
by 552nd Field Artillery Battalion
552nd liberates sub-camps at Dachau
George (552nd) takes down the German flag after the opening of the gates to Dachau
Tom (3rd Armored) supports 552nd Brothers meet at Dachau George gives the flag to brother,
Tom for safe keeping
“Unintentional Liberators”
“We weren’t supposed to be there”
Staff Sgt. George Oiye
Helping Dachau Survivors
Photo by Lt. Sus Ito
Seeing Asian Soldierson “death” march to Dachau
Ernie Hollenback – Asian looking soldiers in American uniform racing towards Dachau
Yanina Cywinska – blindfolded – heard men speaking in unfamiliar English – Hawaiian Pidgin. Surprised to see very short Asian soldiers in US uniforms.
S. Donald Shimazu
“To this day, there are some who are beginning to say Dachau never happened, and there’ll be those who will try to distort things in the future, too. But we were there, and we saw it. We saw the people with our own eyes. And so if anybody says it never happened, we will say they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Biggest Ironies of WW II
WWII – idealized as a war of democracy over fascism yet ironic that some of the liberators were American people of color.
552nd members volunteered/drafted from incarceration centers.
Buchenwalk liberated by African American soldiers few weeks before Dachau.
Tom and George
meet each other after
VE Day
George Kashiwagi, Tom Kashiwagi, Bob Kashiwagi
Resource and References
“Go For Broke” – 1982, Go For Broke, Inc. Go For Broke National Education Center, LA,
CA U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, LA, CA Museum of Tolerance, New York “552nd Vets bear witness to Dachau horror” –
Star Bulletin, Hawaii Liberation of Dachau by Japanese Americans
552nd Field Artillery Battalion 442nd RCT April 29,1945 – Burt Takeuchi
Personal accounts: Robert and Tom Kashiwagi