Seventy eight years ago today — also a Sunday — James Hatsuaki Wakasa was shot to death at 7:30 p.m. at Topaz, Utah, by a guard tower sentry. After we posted a story about the killing, titled “The Demolished Monument,” we received a letter from an 86-year-old Ohio reader who was a child at Topaz at the time. He shared some memories that have haunted him for years.

See also, “The Demolished Monument”
James Hatsuaki Wakasa
and the erasure of memory
At the former Topaz concentration camp in Utah, there’s only dry grass where a concrete monument once stood, to mark where an innocent man was killed by a guard tower sentry. The man was walking his dog after dinner. HIs name was James Hatsuaki Wakasa.