(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
America’s World War II “Nisei Brigade” Helped Save European Jews [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-11
The 442nd Infantry Regiment from World War II is most decorated unit in the history of the U.S. military history. In a racially segregated army, it was made up of approximately 4,500 Nisei, Japanese-Americans born in the United States. Soldiers in the 442nd were awarded 18,000 individual decorations including almost 10,000 Purple Hearts and over 5,000 Bronze Stars and the regiment received seven Presidential Unit Citations for its performance in the Italian and French campaigns. In 2010, the 442nd Regimental Team received a Congressional Gold Medal and in 2012 all surviving members of the regiment were made “chevaliers” of the French Legion of Honor. At the start of the war American citizens of Japanese ancestry were classified as “enemy aliens” and Japanese-American men were exempt from the military draft. Many members of the “Nisei Brigade” were later recruited from Rocky Mountain internment camps and had family members incarcerated behind barbed wire for the length of the war.
A little remembered story is how the 442nd Infantry Regiment helped save the lives of Jews imprisoned in Nazi death camps. As the Soviet and United States armies entered Germany, the Nazi regime evacuated thousands of Jews and other prisoners from concentration camps and forced them into death marches to sites where they would build new fortifications. Dachau was a concentration camp in the southeastern Germany Bavarian Forest and 7,000 surviving prisoners were forcibly moved and people who could not keep up on the march were shot. Surviving prisoners were saved by the arrival of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, which was part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
The story of the 442nd Infantry Regiment and the performance other World War II racially segregated units needs to be retold as the Trump administration and the Department of Defense seek to wipe them out of the historical record in its war against DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The Pentagon recently issued an order that any books that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues must be removed from military-base libraries. Earlier, the Naval Academy removed nearly 400 books from its library including books about Jackie Robinson, Japanese American veterans, and the Navajo Code Talkers, although after protests some of them were later returned to the shelves. The ACLU, representing six military families, is trying to force Defense Department schools to reinstatement more than 200 books and other curricular materials that have been banned. It accuses the Trump administration of “system-wide censorship” that violates First Amendment rights.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/11/2321728/-America-s-World-War-II-Nisei-Brigade-Helped-Save-European-Jews?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
