BAINBRIDGE ISLAND - A lifetime ago, a dock on Bainbridge Island was crowded with Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry, all being taken away to World War II internment camps.

A memorial is now being built on the spot where more than 200 men, women and children were led under armed guard onto ferries 65 years ago.

Kazuko Nakao was 22-years-old when she boarded one of those ferries, and only began speaking about internment a few decades ago.

" We said we don't want to talk to about it you know, it's all over and why bring it up,"
she said.

Trees stood silent witness for generations to that day 65 years ago when fear conquered constitutional rights. Nakao stands now with those who are no longer silent. She's among survivors of internment now dedicated to leaving a legacy in stone to a day fading quickly into history.

Betty June Stafford never forgot that day when she was four, waiving goodbye to friends. She says, "My brother cried, and he was four years older and we didn't get to see him cry very often. Nobody talked in that car, it was a very sad day."

She watched them board buses and then ferries with no final destination.

"We just thought it was horrendous, these people were part of our community forever," Stafford said.

Nakao rode away on one of these ferries.

"We didn't know how to dress or what to take, everything was a puzzle," she said.

A puzzle pieced together at this National Monument under construction. The pier Japanese-Americans had to use to walk away from their homes and communities will be rebuilt.

U.S. Representative Jay Inslee says, "When people walk down, they will walk in the footsteps of a sad day in American history, but a day now that will be a promise to the future that that will never be recreated."

A promise Nakao and those here 65 years after the presidential order sealing their wartime fate was signed, plan to keep.

"People kept saying, if we don't talk about it, it could happen again," she said.

The National Monument still needs $3 million in funding. Those in Congress hope it's complete in about the next year.