SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – An exhibit at the Utah State Capitol was held on Friday entitled, “Topaz Stories.”
The exhibit features dozens stories told by Japanese Americans who were held captive during World War II.
It specifically focuses on the more than 11,000 people who were brought to Utah’s Sevier Desert in the 1940s.
The camp was originally called the “Central Utah Relocation Center,” however, it was later known as the “Topaz Center.”
ABC4’s Courtney Johns speaks to a woman who was the first baby born at the center.
“The only places she was able to give birth was in laundry room 4, on the cement floor of the laundry,” the woman says.
31 stories of Topaz Camp were on display at the capitol as well as several artifacts, and the curator of the exhibit says that it’s important for everyone to know what happened 80 years ago, when President Roosevelt signed off on incarcerating more than 120,000 Japanese Americans.