This guide is designed to introduce researchers to some of the resources available through the Hawai'i Army Library system related to internment that took place in Hawai'i during World War II. Internment is also referred to as incarceration, confinement and detention.
In 1983,the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians issued a report entitled Personal Justice Denied, condemning the internment as unjust and motivated by racism rather than military necessity.
The U.S. Congress, under Public Law 111-88, directed the National Park Service (NPS) to carry out a resource study because of the importance of the confinement story of Japanese Americans and European Americans interned in Hawai'i during World War II. In May 2014, the NPS released a draft special resource study of Hawai'i's World War II confinement sites to determine the best way to preserve the sites and share their history. The study evaluated 17 sites associated with the history of internment in HawaiĘ»i (See map below: Confinement sites in Hawai‘i during World War II).
The NPS found that the former Honouliuli Internment Camp in Waipahu is a nationally significant historic site, which lead to President Obama designating the area as a national monument in February 2015. The Honouliuli Internment Camp, which opened in 1943, served as the largest prisoner-of-war camp and longest-used World War II confinement site in Hawai‘i.
Overview:
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. People of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry that were deemed dangerous to the nation were sent to internment camps. The mass incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry was the largest forced removal of people in the history of the United States [1].In 1983,the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians issued a report entitled Personal Justice Denied, condemning the internment as unjust and motivated by racism rather than military necessity.
The U.S. Congress, under Public Law 111-88, directed the National Park Service (NPS) to carry out a resource study because of the importance of the confinement story of Japanese Americans and European Americans interned in Hawai'i during World War II. In May 2014, the NPS released a draft special resource study of Hawai'i's World War II confinement sites to determine the best way to preserve the sites and share their history. The study evaluated 17 sites associated with the history of internment in HawaiĘ»i (See map below: Confinement sites in Hawai‘i during World War II).
 |
| Confinement sites in Hawai‘i during World War II (NPS, 2014). |
The NPS found that the former Honouliuli Internment Camp in Waipahu is a nationally significant historic site, which lead to President Obama designating the area as a national monument in February 2015. The Honouliuli Internment Camp, which opened in 1943, served as the largest prisoner-of-war camp and longest-used World War II confinement site in Hawai‘i.
[1] Honouliuli Gulch and Associated Sites DraftSpecial Resource Study And Environmental Assessment, National Park Service, 2014.
