Honouliuli Internment Camp closed 69 years ago, but shame, sorrow and regret still haunt the gulch called Jigoku-Dani, or Hell Valley, by the Japanese-Americans who were held there during World War II.
The Kunia site, kept out of sight during the war and out of the American consciousness for decades after that, was dedicated in an emotional ceremony Tuesday as Honouliuli National Monument.
Following Hawaiian and Shinto blessings, Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell observed, "I think for a land that probably felt, for some, as though it was cursed, it is now blessed."
Todd Takahashi, an assistant minister at the Konko Mission of Honolulu, had the dual distinction of helping preside over the blessing of a site that at one time imprisoned his aunt Haruko Takahashi, a Shinto priestess.
"The first time I came here, I couldn’t imagine what she went through," Takahashi said, fighting back tears. "For my family it’s a conversation piece that we’ve all known that she was here, but for my father’s siblings it’s kind of a hush-hush story, and I feel it’s such an important story to tell — especially since all she was doing was just her job and then she was arrested for being an American citizen."
His aunt, born on Hawaii island and holding dual citizenship, was taken into custody after the Pearl Harbor attacks and moved first to Sand Island, Takahashi said. She was released on July 7, 1944, from Honouliuli, he said.
Officials also untied a maile lei at the dedication.
"We think about Pearl Harbor and we think about World War II, and of course the National Park site is called Valor in the Pacific," Jewell said. "But there is a darker side to World War II."
And that was what happened in Hawaii and on the mainland with the internment of Japanese and some European-Americans.
"This (Honouliuli) site is unique because the shame associated with internment meant that it was lost to the jungle for many, many years," Jewell said.
According to officials, the site was investigated by news reporters in 1998 and rediscovered by volunteers from the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii in 2002. President Barack Obama proclaimed Honouliuli a national monument Feb. 24.
"The Honouliuli Internment Camp serves as a powerful reminder of the need to protect civil liberties in times of conflict, and the effects of martial law on civil society," the proclamation states.
The 155-acre monument will be administered by the National Park Service. Monsanto Hawaii already donated 123 acres and is giving 22 more, while the University of Hawaii-West Oahu has agreed to provide access across its property.
"Transferring ownership of this land to the federal government is the result of years of planning and coordination. We’re very proud to be part of this collaboration," said Alan Takemoto, Monsanto’s community affairs manager for Hawaii.
Opened in 1943, Honouliuli Internment Camp was the last, largest and longest-used World War II confinement site in Hawaii.
The majority of Honouliuli’s approximately 400 civilian internees were Japanese-Americans who were citizens by birth. The remaining group comprised predominantly German-Americans, though there were also Americans and aliens of Italian, Irish, Russian and Scandinavian descent, according to the Park Service.
The Kunia site was also the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Hawaii, with nearly 4,000 POWs who included enemy soldiers and labor conscripts from Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan and Italy.
Before martial law was invoked, government officials began selectively rounding up Hawaii residents of Japanese descent, including teachers and priests. Most were sent to the mainland to be held for the duration of the war.
The internment in Hawaii targeted a relatively small percentage of the ethnic Japanese population, according to the White House proclamation. Fewer than 1 percent of Hawaii’s ethnic Japanese were interned. That contrasted with the mass internment of all 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.
Despite the government’s allegations of disloyalty, none of the Japanese-American internees from Hawaii was ever found guilty of sabotage, espionage or overt acts against the United States.
Honouliuli closed in 1945 for civilian internees and in 1946 for prisoners of war and was bulldozed sometime after that.
To get there now requires passage through a Monsanto gate off Kunia Road, a drive past soybean and corn plots, and a steep descent into the gulch.
The dedication was held on a concrete mess hall foundation that may have been used for German and Italian and Japanese female internees. The foundation is choked by thigh-high grass, haole koa, banyans and plenty of mosquitoes.
A 1920 aqueduct and mortar wall used as part of a Campbell Estate sugar cane irrigation system — which are still standing — were used to orient points on the camp.
According to a 2011 National Register of Historic Places report, the internee camp was originally divided into four separate areas. West of the stream was the Japanese-American men’s compound. East of the stream were the Japanese-American women and German-Americans.
Internee barracks were wooden buildings, and some photos showed neatly planted shrubs and trees.
"Boredom was oppressive, and many worked on gardening, landscaping or crafts to pass the time," the report said.
The Park Service is required by the proclamation to prepare a management plan for the monument within three years.
Some of the overgrowth will be removed, and some of the structures will be re-created "so that when people come and visit, they will have a sense of what it was like to be interned here," Jewell told reporters.
"It’s time for the shame to be gone. It’s time for the blessings to be felt — and that’s what this is all about," Jewell had earlier told those assembled for the monument dedication.
