Manzanar Cemetery

 memorial, cemetery

The first grave at the Manzanar Center in cemetery was that of Matsunosuke Murakami, 62, who died of heart disease on 16 May 1942. He had been ill ever since he arrived here with the first contingent and had been confined to the hospital since the 23rd of March.
Photo of his grave was made by Dorothea Lange in July of that year, when she was working on assignment for the War Relocation Authority.
Official records note that of the 135 internees who died at Manzanar, 28 were buried in the Manzanar cemetery.
Only 15 burials (dates of death ranged from 16 May 1942 to 19 December 1944) remained as of June 1945. Four of them were "without relatives and whose remains would, by law, be put in custody of the county of their residence for disposal." When people died and the county assumed custody, the remains were to be disposed of by cremation in all cases.
Bodies that were removed from the cemetery "must be shipped by state law" in metal boxes, "which are not obtainable at the present time." The cost of the metal containers was $50, and the cost of paperwork "incident to removal and shipment" was $25. The project management did not "deem it advisable to request local communities to accept remains for burial."
By the end of 1945 all but six bodies had been removed from the Manzanar cemetery. On 7 January 1946 Project Director Ralph Merritt ordered a "three-wire fence, with posts four feet high, around the smallest area of the Manzanar Cemetery necessary to enclose the remaining six graves."
The ground "where bodies have been dug and removed" was to be smoothed out. Markers were to be left "only on the six graves in which there are bodies." A two-foot-wide opening in the fence should be provided "for people to enter."
(The little graves to the north of the cemetery were not to be included as they "are the burying places only of pets.")

Yellow rectangle shows the original bounderies of the cemetery as of 1944.