Expulsion and Internment

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Expulsion and Internment
By Philip Feldman Austin Powers Shu Yu Yang
James Sohn Marc Williamson Daniel Davidson
Josh Barton
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1492

• Christopher Columbus discovers America
• May 19th
• King Ferdinand declared that all Jews must leave
  Spain by July 30th or be punished by death

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Father Tomas de Torquemada

• Jews supposedly trying to revert recently
  converted Jews from their newfound faith in
  Christianity back to old beliefs in Judaism
• Torquemada fixes the problem by telling Jews to
  either convert or leave the country
• Many Jews in the upper class take easy way out,
  converting to Christianity but not really
  meaning it
• They would do everything that they did before
  as a Jew, but still be under the (false) label of
  being a Christian.

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Torquemadas edict, contd

• Huge rush of so many Jews trying to get out of
  the country caused mass chaos and confusion
• King said that Jews could leave with no gold,
  jewels, or other precious items
• Everything of value had to be bartered away

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Direct Effects of Expulsion

• Jews go to extreme measures to try and sneak
  precious goods out of the country
• Example- swallowing necklaces and earrings
• Once the word got out that Jews were doing this,
  thieves didnt think twice about slitting open a
  Jews stomach, in hopes that riches would pour
  out of their body
• Approximately 50,000 Jewish families were expelled

Edict of Torquemada
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Where to go?

• Jews not welcomed in North Africa- not allowed in
  any of the cities, left for dead in the untamed
  parts of the continent
• Boats came to Spain to pick up expelled Jews.
  Some countries, such as Genoa, were ruthless and
  robbed Jews, and eventually killed most of them.

• Other places like Sicily and Turkey extremely
  kind and generous to Jews that flooded the
  country
• Country of Naples struggled to make ends
  meet Monks who normally wanted nothing to do
  with the Jews were willing to help them
• Jews who fled to neighboring Portugal,
  seemingly a safe bet, end up with tragic results.

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Portugal

• Four years after expulsion was completed, Queen
  Isabella from Spain and King Manuel of Portugal
  arranged to get married
• Manuel caves into the pressure of Isabella,
  declared a similar proclamation as Spain had done
  in 1492
• Jews that went to Portugal had to pay to stay,
  even then- king only promised 6 months of free
  stay.
• After 6 months, Manuel sold all of the remaining
  Jews into slavery, sent the children to a remote
  island off of the coast of Africa.

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Cruelty to His Subjects

• A contract between the Jews and the King, in
  which the Jews would pay the King a large sum of
  money in return for the king allowing them to
  stay in the country, almost completed within
  the 3 month span when they were supposed to be
  getting ready to leave
• However, Prior of Santa Cruz soon caused this to
  fall through, telling the king a convincing
  argument that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces
  of silver, and that by allowing the Jews to pay
  off their expulsion, He was no better than he who
  betrayed Christ.

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Notable Quotes

• Abraham Heschel (famous Jewish scholar from the
  1930s)
• "The Jews of Spain ... had held imposing
  positions before their expulsion. The conquest
  of the New World was accomplished without their
  collaboration. Had they remained on the Iberian
  peninsula, they most probably would have taken
  part in the enterprises of the conquistadores.
  When the latter arrived in Haiti, they found over
  one million inhabitants. Twenty years later one
  thousand remained. The desperate Jews of 1492
  could not know what a favor had been done for
  them.

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Quotes, contd

• Solomon Ibn Verga (eyewitness to Jewish
  suffering)
• At that time, an event occurred, the like
  of which is unheard. An Arab came, and saw a
  beautiful young Jewish woman, and in front of her
  parents he violated her. About half an hour later
  he returned with a spear and stabbed the young
  woman through her belly. They said to him "O
  cruel one! Why did you do this?" He answered "I
  was afraid that she might become pregnant, and
  her child would be raised as a Jew." Hear and
  see! Has such a thing happened in the world, or
  did one hear of such?

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Japanese Internment

• On December 7th 1941- Japanese attacked Pearl
  Harbor. US citizens feared another attack and war
  hysteria seized the country.
• On February 19th 1942 Roosevelt signed
  Executive Order 9066.
• Some 120,000 people of Japanese descent living
  in the US were removed from their homes and
  placed in internment camps.
• More than two thirds of those interned were
  American citizens and half of them were children.

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Suspicions Arise

• Suspicion fueled by a series of intercepted
  encrypted communications among Japanese officials
• Led some to conclude that Japanese Americans were
  being recruited as spies, based on these
  communications
• Validity of these conclusions sketchy at best-
  rely on prejudice rather than actual evidence
• Completely unjustifiable to penalize and entire
  race on the potential actions of a few

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Notable Quotes

• It was really cruel and harsh. To pack and
  evacuate in forty-eight hours was an
  impossibility. Seeing mothers completely
  bewildered with children crying from want and
  peddlers taking advantage and offering prices
  next to robbery made me feel like murdering those
  responsible without the slightest compunction in
  my heart."
• -Joseph
  Yoshisuke Kurihara speaking of the Terminal
  Island evacuation.
• "I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army
  tank and I looked at their rifles and I was just
  terrified because I could see this long knife at
  the end . . . I thought I was imagining it as an
  adult much later . . . I thought it couldn't have
  been bayonets because we were just little kids."?
  -From (Children of the Camps)

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Internment Living

• Japanese Americans housed in "tar-paper covered
  barracks of simple frame construction, without
  plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind"
• Coal hard to come by, internees slept under as
  many blankets as they were allotted
• Food rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per
  internee, served by fellow internees in a mess
  hall of 250-300 people

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More Quotes

• "...I remember my mother wrappingA blanket
  around me andPretending to fall asleep, so she
  would be happyThough I was so excited I
  couldn't sleep.(I hear there were people
  herdedInto the Hastings Park like
  cattleFamilies were made to move in two
  hoursAbandoned everything, leaving petsAnd
  possessions at gun point...
• -(Joy Kogawa)

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A Way Out

• Government allowed internees to leave
  concentration camps if they enlisted in the U.S.
  Army
• Offer was not well received- Only 1,200 internees
  chose to do so.

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An End to Suffering

• December 1944- Public Proclamation number 21
  issued, which became effective in January 1945,
  allowed internees to return to their homes
• After the war there was a long silence because of
  their shame and guilt, not unlike the victims of
  the holocaust.

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Then and Now

• Spanish Expulsion was spurred on by great
  prejudice against a religion, just wanted to get
  rid of a pest (no matter how ignorant that
  claim may be)
• Japanese internment happens because of paranoia-
  people get caught with supposedly finding a few
  bad apples, an entire races penalized for it

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Conclusion

• Expulsion and Internment ultimately caused
  because of ignorance and a domino effect (where
  prejudice spreads like wildfire, can get out of
  control very quickly)
• If we learn from our past, maybe we can learn
  from the past, and future events like these can
  be avoided