Group Media & Photos
Zenji and Kiku Takahashi and family. Daughter Haruko, who became a Konkokyo minister and also was interned, is in center with glasses. JCCH/Konko Mission of Wahiawa Collection.
Zenji Takahashi. Wooden table with wood inlay of Takahashi family crest (kamon). JCCH/Takahashi Family Collection.
Arrested: February 1942
Kilauea Military Camp, Hawaii Island
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
This internee was among 39 men (mostly Issei) who were sent on the fourth transfer ship for internment in U.S. Army and Justice Department camps on the Mainland. These men were sent together from camp to camp, with some paroled to War Relocation Authority camps to reunite with family or transferred for repatriation to Japan.
Also sent on the same ship were six Issei women internees: Kiku Horibe, Miyuki Kawasaki, Yoshie Miyao, Yuki Miyao, Haru Tanaka, and Tsuta Yamane. The women were kept apart from the men and had a different internment sequence from them.
Angel Island Detention Facility, California
6月 1942 - 7月 1942
Lordsburg Internment Camp, New Mexico
7月 1942 - 6月 1943
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
6月 1943 - 10月 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
Zenji Takahashi emigrated from Kochi Prefecture to Waimanalo, Oahu, and went on to settle in Kohala and Hawi on Hawaii Island, where he raised his family.
A carpenter and contractor, he participated in the construction of the Hawi Catholic Church, the Shingon-shu Temple in Kona, the Konko Mission in Hilo, and the Waimea Gym, all on the Big Island. In 1940, Takahashi had a part in fashioning military housing into the Konko Church in Wahiawa, Oahu.
He was the father of Konko minister Haruko Takahashi, who was herself arrested and confined at the Honouliuli Internment Camp for some 16 months.