Encyclopedia > Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was a group of people appointed by the U.S. Congress to conduct an official governmental study of Executive Order 9066, related wartime orders and their impact on Japanese Americans in the West and Alaska Natives in the Pribilof Islands. Seal of the U.S. Congress. ... Exclusion order posted at First and Front Streets in San Francisco, California, directing removal of persons of Japanese ancestry. ... Alaska Natives are indigenous peoples who live in what is now the U.S. state of Alaska. ... The Pribilof Islands (often called the Fur Seal Islands, Russian: Kotovi) are a group of four volcanic islands, part of Alaska, lying in the Bering Sea, about 200 miles north of Unalaska and 200 miles south of Cape Newenham, the nearest point on the North American mainland. ...
In 1983, the CWRIC issued its findings in Personal Justice Denied, concluding that the incarceration of Japanese Americans had not been justified by military necessity. Rather, the report determined that the decision to incarcerate was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." Lastly, the Commission recommended legislative remedies consisting of an official Government apology; redress payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors; and a public education fund to help ensure that this would not happen again (Public Law 100-383). 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...