On Wednesday, Federal officials apologized for their role in the World War II internment of the Unangan people.
Jim Kurth — acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — traveled to St. Paul Island to speak with survivors and descendants.
“As much as we wish, we cannot take back the course of history,” Kurth said. “But what we can do now is heal together. We can work together.”
Fish and Wildlife agents oversaw the internment of the people of the Pribilof Islands. They were sent to inhumane camps in southeast Alaska where many perished due to illness and starvation — after the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor in 1942.
In all, almost 900 Alaska Natives were evacuated from the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands.
Zoe Sobel is a reporter with Alaska's Energy Desk based in Unalaska. As a high schooler in Portland, Maine, Zoë Sobel got her first taste of public radio at NPR’s easternmost station. From there, she moved to Boston where she studied at Wellesley College and worked at WBUR, covering sports for Only A Game and the trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
