Orphans at Manzanar

“Childhood Lost: The Orphans of Manzanar” (March 11) answered a 16-year-old question for me.

Prompted by a pilgrimage that I made to the site in 1980, my mother, Tazuko Ryono, told me some of her memories about Manzanar. She talked about the dust storms that would come up without warning, the barbed wire and the armed soldiers.

She also mentioned the “building where the babies cried.” She died later that year before I could find out what she meant by that. Now, over 16 years later, I realize that she was talking about the orphans of Manzanar.

HUGH RYONO, Fullerton

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The scope of your article on the interned children of Manzanar is incomplete. Millions of children all over the world were rounded up in World War II. Unlike the Germans, we did not gas children. God bless America for that.

RALPH PERL, Venice