Donated WWII Japanese internment camp photos show slice of normal life
VANCOUVER — The black and white picture shows teenage girls posing for the camera with their clothes neatly pressed, their hair in perfect movie star pin curls, but the background of a dilapidated Second World War internment camp doesn’t fit the image.
That paradox is one of the reasons Carla Ayukawa donated her mother’s photo album to the Canadian War Museum. The pictures document some of Michiko Ishii’s young life in a Japanese-Canadian internment camp in southeastern British Columbia.
“These four girls, they’re all posing, but what are they standing in front of? It’s not a movie theatre or some kind of arcade, it’s a shack,” said Ayukawa.
“It’s the irony of what’s going on around them and they’re still continuing on as teenagers.”