Aleutian World War II Evacuation

Aleutian World War II Evacuation “Reparations helped ease the pain, but were too little too late,” according to Harriet Hope of Unalaska, Harriet was 5 when her family was evacuated. It has been 70+ years since the Aleut people were forced to leave their homes by evacuation during World War II. The Aleutian Islands are a string of some 200+ islands along Southwest Alaska that come out into the Pacific Ocean. Also referred to as “Unangan”, the Aleut People are closely related to the Eskimo in language and culture. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the earliest people in this region, the Paleo-Aleuts arrived in the Aleutian Islands from the Alaskan mainland around 2000 B.C. Native Aleuts were exploited to Russian explorers and traders in

Those who were unaware of the destruction of their homes and churches came back to witness just that. Few people knew of the internment camps given to the Aleuts other than the survivors until some began remembering the tragedy of their camps and began asking the government for compensation. Still it remains today that many are unaware of what happened to the Aleut people. By 1982, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians investigated the five Aleut camps in Alaska and stated government “indifference” of “deplorable conditions”. The group reported crowding, rotting buildings, lack of furniture, no clean and running water, no electricity, no medical care, and no government supervision. Congress authorized reparations to the Aleuts in 1988 along with Japanese-Americans and stated a formal apology. Aleut survivors received $12,000, and a $5-million trust fund was set up under the Interior Department to help them and their descendants. Another $1.4 million went to restoring churches in six villages. Aleut Corp., a native regional corporation in Anchorage, was given $15 million as compensation for Attu Island, the island occupied by the military which also remains closed to its former inhabitants. Harriet Hope, who was mentioned before, stated, “The people who really deserved any kind of recognition for the hell they were put through are gone now, like my parents.” Hope also made claims that her parents never