HB 10 passed 31-8 heads to the Senate for consideration. The descendants of those who were lost have maintained the grave sites for 79 years. The deadly conditions of the camp left the Unangax people to suffer needlessly. Thirty-two Unangax died, and the survivors were left in the camp almost two years after it was considered safe to return home. The 700 German prisoners all returned home after the war without a single death during their imprisonment. (Courtesy of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum)The first time Martin Stepetin went to the Unangax cemetery at Funter Bay, he didn’t know how to find it.We looked all over inside of Funter Bay, Stepetin said. The Nazis, sworn enemies of the United States and allies, were treated far better than the Unangax because their conditions were guaranteed by international law. A recent photo of the Unangax cemetery at Funter Bay. The living conditions were unsanitary, and there was inadequate food supply, no medical care, and no facilities for bathing, cooking or using the bathroom.įewer than 30 miles away in Excursion Inlet, 700 Nazi Afrika Korps officers were imprisoned at a prisoner-of-war camp. Entire families were sheltered in small cubicles that were separated sometimes only by blankets. Like other veterans, many Native Americans took advantage of the GI Bill to attend. This legislation protects the cemetery in Funter Bay by expanding the park boundaries by 250 acres to include the cemetery and to honors its significance in Alaska’s history. Thirty-two died at the Funter Bay camp, seventeen at Killisnoo. The people were abandoned in old cannery bunk houses not meant to house so many people and not built for protection from winter’s harshness. HB 10 Funter Bay Memorial This week the House heard and passed House Bill 10, Funter Bay Marine Park: Unangan Cemetery by a vote of 31-8. They were given little notice, and the villagers could take only what they could carry. Some were sent to Killisnoo near Angoon, others were sent to Burnett Inlet, Ward Cove in Ketchikan, Wrangell, and the rest were sent to Funter Bay near Juneau. When the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands during WWII, the Unangax people were forcibly removed to Southeast Alaska. ![]() “After traveling to the cemetery and spending time with the survivors and descendants in my district, it’s impossible to overstate the cultural and emotional significance of this site,” added Rep. Sara Hannan (D-Juneau), the bill’s sponsor. ![]() “This bill represents a significant step in the effort to confront a dark chapter of Alaska’s history, when some of our own people were taken from their homes and placed in an abandoned cannery rather than treated with respect and welcomed into one of our communities as fellow Alaskans,” said Rep. House Bill 10 transfers a parcel of land from the Department of Natural Resources Land and Mining Water Division to the Division of Parks and Recreation, adding the land to the Funter Bay Marine Park to ensure Alaskans’ access to the site in perpetuity.
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