By Kristen moulton

| The Salt Lake Tribune

Descendants of Japanese-Americans and survivors who lived through the humiliating and frightening World War II years can, for the next six days, gain free access to two online historical collections.

Provo-based Ancestry.com has opened its two collections to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Order 9066, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued on Feb. 19, 1942.

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In recognition of the 70th anniversary of the order sending Japanese-Americans along the West Coast to internment camps, Provo-based Ancestry.com is offering a week’s free access to two related collections. Free access is available through midnight Thursday via www.ancestry.com/Japanese.

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In the wake of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, Roosevelt ordered that all Japanese-Americans living along the West Coast move to inland internment camps. Some 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forced to move.

Anastasia Harman, Ancestry.com’s lead family historian, said the two collections comprise the largest online database of Japanese-American internment records.

The first, "Japanese Americans Relocated During World War II," holds War Relocation Authority information on those who were moved to the 10 camps, from Utah to Arkansas. Data includes each internee’s parents’ names and place of birth.

"It shows that many of these Japanese-Americans who were interned were not immigrants. They were first- and second-generation Americans," Harman said.

The second collection, "World War II Japanese-American Internment Camp Documents, 1942-1946," has a variety of documents from each of the camps, such as copies of newspapers and church bulletins.

For instance, there are copies of the Topaz Times newspaper published at the camp in western Utah.

That collection can help a family "add the context, the flavor," Harman said. "It’s telling the story of the community within the camp."

Raymond Uno, a retired 3rd District Court judge who was sent to Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming from age 11 to 14, said Friday he doesn’t know whether many people of Japanese descent will use the records.

But learning family history, he said, is something the community increasingly stresses.

It’s one of the reasons the Japanese-American community has planned a luncheon Saturday to honor Japanese-American soldiers of World War II. Forty Utah and Idaho veterans will be given bronze replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal, which was awarded to them in Washington last November, and 90 more medals will be given to soldiers’ surviving family members.

They were among thousands of young Japanese-American men who enlisted in the U.S. Army, proving their loyalty and shedding their blood for the country.

Organizers are expecting a large turnout at the luncheon.

Uno, chairman of the organizing committee, said tables will be set for 1,020 for the luncheon, which begins at noon in the Grand America Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. At 11 a.m., an exhibit of photographs organized by the University of Utah’s Marriott Library Special Collections will open.