‘Washington Remembers’

MOSES LAKE — Thirty-four countries at war. More than 70 million men in arms. Roughly 3% of the world’s population dead by the end. The Second World War only lasted six years, and America’s part in it less than three, but few eras define the world we live in so much, or loom as large in our national consciousness.

“World War II is a topic of endless fascination for people just because it was so complex and so world-changing,” said Dollie Boyd, the director of the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center, which is currently hosting an exhibit dedicated to that conflict. “It's the memories and the experiences of the people who are there at the time.”

The exhibit, titled “Washington Remembers World War II,” is actually one piece in a three-part whole. One part comes from the Washington Secretary of State and focuses on the experiences of Washingtonians from different walks of life as the war touched them. There’s Les Amundson, a bomber pilot captured and held as a prisoner of war in Germany. Beside him is Stan Jones, a Marine who witnessed the horrifying aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. And there’s Clayton Pitre, the “invisible Marine,” one of the first Black men accepted in the Marine Corps. Pitre fought the Japanese Army in Saipan and Okinawa only to have to fight his own countrymen for his civil rights on his return. All are memorialized in photos, quotations and stories.

Alongside “Washington Remembers World War II” is a poster exhibit from the Smithsonian Institute entitled “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II,” which examines the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during the war years with headlines like “How could this happen?” and “How will you shape the future?”

“Righting a Wrong” isn’t actually connected with the Washington exhibit, Boyd said.

“We knew the Secretary of State's exhibit wouldn't fill the whole gallery, so we were looking for something to add that would be complementary,” she said. “The Smithsonian has a lot of poster exhibits that you can download for free, and then you print them and you mount them yourself. And this was a perfect addition. I think it's really good, especially for younger people. It gives you that moment of, ‘Oh, yeah, we do need to work to prevent these things from happening.”

The third piece of the puzzle also deals with the internment, but brings it closer to home.

“These are our local stories,” said Jenni Shelton, creative programs coordinator for the museum. “These are Moses Lake families, Moses Lake Japanese American families, that were directly affected by the internment camps, whether it be their parents that were in them (or) themselves. These were made in house. Our previous director interviewed these people and made up these exhibits to tell their stories.”

The Moses Lake exhibit was shown a few years ago, Shelton said, and brought back out because it tied in so well with the other two.

The response from the community has been so strong, Boyd said, that the museum has put up what she calls a “response center.” Here visitors can write down their feelings about what they’re seeing on a slip of paper and post it for future guests.

“I've seen lots of notes that say, 'My dad was in this war, he was my hero. and 'I didn't know some of this stuff,’” she said. “It's a good chance for people to use their own personal names and responses.”

Boyd said her own grandfather had served in France, right after D-Day, and was wounded. The war ended almost 80 years ago, but even today nobody is completely untouched by it.

“We are losing a lot of the Greatest Generation today, but those things echo down through families,” she said. “There's still plenty still alive who remember their fathers coming back or not coming back from the war, or remember their mothers working in the Boeing factory.”

“Washington Remembers World War II” runs through May 12.

Joel Martin can be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.