‘Topaz Stories’ exhibit travels Utah showing human side of WWII internment

PARK CITY — Stories are bridges. Or at least that’s what Ruth Sasaki, editor of “Topaz Stories” and daughter of a World War II Japanese American internment camp survivor, thinks.

Sasaki has spent the last six years collecting stories of the more than 8,000 Japanese Americans who survived incarceration at Topaz, a WWII detention camp near Delta. Most of them or their descendants now live in the San Francisco area.

“My hope was to not just present facts and information but actual stories about individuals so that people could develop empathy for the normal, everyday people who went through this experience that was totally unjustified,” she said.

Sasaki worked with Friends of the Topaz and the Topaz Museum to turn the stories into a traveling museum exhibit. The exhibit is open to the public at the Kimball Junction branch of the Summit County Library in Park City.

Kirsten Nilsson, a children’s librarian and exhibit coordinator at the library, said the Topaz Stories exhibit jumped out to her immediately. She developed a personal interest in Topaz after visiting the museum in Delta and reading several books about it.

Read the full story and more from Emma Everett Johnson on KSL.com.

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