Minidoka

We’ve heard many stories of what happened after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, one story you may not have heard is how many of the men sent to Minidoka were later drafted to serve in World War II, and refused to fight for the country that put them and their families behind barbed wire.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor during World War II, the lives of Japanese Americans changed dramatically.

From 1942 to 1945, the family of Barbara Yoshida Berthiaume was incarcerated in the Minidoka Japanese internment camp in Eastern Idaho. But she didn’t learn about this dark chapter in her family’s history until she was in her senior year at Kuna High.

During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to an internment camp near Twin Falls. Today the Minidoka National Historic Site preserves part of that site keeping the history of that time alive for visitors.

The Idaho camp, which sometimes held over 9,000 Japanese-American detainees, operated from 1942 to 1945. A National Historic Site now lies there, outside Jerome and Twin Falls.

The Lava Ridge Wind Project would include about 400 turbines, mostly on Bureau of Land Management land in Jerome, Lincoln and Minidoka counties.

A renewable energy company is proposing Idaho’s largest wind farm on the desert land in the Magic Valley, and former incarcerees, their family members and the National Park Service are raising concerns about its proximity to the Minidoka Historic Site.

This interview originally aired Oct. 1, 2020.During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were ordered by the U.S. government to be incarcerated…

Minidoka Memorial is a 17-bed county-owned hospital in Rupert, along the Snake River Plain. Emergency physician Dr. David Wageman took his shift there…

During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were ordered by the U.S. government to be incarcerated in remote camps. The order, signed by…