Remembering and coping: Internment camp paintings are a catharsis for Salt Lake artist

A little girl cries. She is watching jackrabbits jump freely through a barbed-wire fence, in and out of the internment camp where she and her family are imprisoned.

The air outside her barrack is filled with the sound of homemade wooden geta sandals clip-clopping through camp.

At night a searchlight mounted on a guard tower blasts onto a small girl walking to the latrine.

A little girl in a kimono stands in the midst of barbed wire, barracks, a map of the camp's location in Colorado, and a guard tower where helmeted soldiers peer down, rifles in hand.

An 11-year-old's hands reach for a beautiful doll in a kimono, hovering above bleak rows of barracks.

These are some of the profound watercolors by Lily Havey, a Salt Lake artist who was imprisoned with her father, mother and brother in two of the internment camps where Japanese-Americans were held during World War II. Many years later, she painted the large works from her recollections and a few photos, helping her cope with the experience.

As Feb. 19 approached — the Day of Remembrance — she shared the striking paintings with the Deseret Morning News. This year the Day of Remembrance marks the 65th anniversary of the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, resulting in the rounding up and internment of more than 100,000 residents, most of them American citizens.

Forced to live for up to three years in 10 camps around the country, including the so-called Topaz Relocation Center in central Utah, the internees lived in barracks with armed guards watching their moves. Many of the young men joined the Army and fought valiantly for the country that had imprisoned them and their families, and many died in the service.

Havey's viewpoint in the paintings is that of a child who at times felt she was going on an adventure, at others was frightened, and often longed for things she was denied. These included a pretty doll, fresh orange juice and freedom.

In 1942 she, her brother, George, their mother, Yoshiko Nakai, and their father, Kanesaburu Nakai, were uprooted from their home in Los Angeles. They had 10 days to pack their suitcases.

They and hundreds of other evacuees stayed about six months in temporary quarters at the Santa Anita, Calif., racetrack. She had just turned 10.

"We were sent to Santa Anita because they hadn't completed the camps," she said during an interview in her Sugar House-area home.