During World War II a number of countries, notably the USA and Australia, interned citizens with blood relationships to enemy countries primarily only racist grounds. Thus in the USA Japanese-Americans were interned but not those of German or Italian extraction. None of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans interned in this way was ever charged with espionage or sabotage; only in 1988 did the government of the USA decide to award compensation, although by that time many had died or suffered theft of their property. The issue arose again in relation to the Gulf War when Arab-Americans were subject to loyalty checks.