Starting July 18, the public will be able to visit Honouliuli National Historic Site via guided tours for the first time as the park marks 80 years since the internment camp closed in 1946.
Honouliuli tells the story of incarceration, martial law, and prisoners of war in Hawaiʻi during World War II. The incarceration site, opened in 1943, was the largest and longest used incarceration site in Hawaiʻi where U.S. residents and citizens of Japanese and European ancestry were unjustly detained. The camp also held over 4,000 prisoners of war from Okinawa, Korea, Japan, Italy, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian islands were a U.S. territory, and the sugar-cane industry was in full swing thanks to a cheap labor force from Asia and around the world. By World War II, nearly 40 per cent of the local population had Japanese ancestry. Within hours of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, martial law was declared, giving the FBI and military the power to single out, interrogate and detain civilians suspected of disloyalty to the United States.
Many of those detained were sent to Honouliuli.
The camp disappeared after its closure but was rediscovered in 2002 on overgrown property that was then owned by Monsanto. Bayer Hawai’i, a vital part of Hawaiʻi's agricultural community, donated 123 of the internment camp’s original 160 acres of land to help protect its story, and President Barack Obama declared the land a national monument on February 24, 2015. Congress elevated it into a national historic site four years later.
In partnership with Hawaii’s Plantation Village, tours will now be offered at the site as part of a series of special events and activities from June through September, developed with community partners to commemorate the site’s history and expand public access.
Additional highlights of the series include:
- Documentary screenings and panel discussions: Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawaiʻi, followed by conversations with director Ryan Kawamoto of Kinetic Productions, Carole Hayashino former president and executive director of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaiʻi which also produced the film, and park superintendent Christine Ogura. This event will be held on Kauaʻi, Maui, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, and Hawaiʻi islands. Dates, times and locations are posted on the park website.
- Pop-up exhibits at public libraries: In partnership with the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System, exhibits will be hosted at these public libraries: Kailua-Kona, Hilo, Līhuʻe, Molokaʻi, Wailuku, and Lānaʻi during the documentary screening month.
- Special performances: In partnership with the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra, members of the orchestra will be playing pieces inspired by a violin used at the camp in conjunction with an Oʻahu documentary film screening.
- Speaker series: Virtual and in-person talks exploring remembrance through art, architecture, institutions, the legal system, and technology.
- Finale event (Sept. 27): A closing program at the Hawaiʻi Theatre featuring members of the Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony, taiko master Kenny Endo, and acclaimed ukulele artist Jake Shimabukuro, who will debut an original composition inspired by Honouliuli.
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