WASHINGTON — Places where Japanese Americans were interned or relocated during World War II could be preserved under a bill the House passed yesterday.

Public and private groups could get federal grants to buy and preserve sites, including Honouliuli in Leeward O'ahu.

The bill, approved on a voice vote, sets up a $38 million grant program in the National Park Service, with grant recipients required to match 25 percent of the money.

The bill covers all sites associated with the internment of Japanese Americans during the war but specifically mentions Honouliuli; Gila River and Poston, Ariz.; Granada, Colo.; Heart Mountain, Wyo.; Jerome and Rohwer, Ark.; Manzanar and Tule Lake, Calif.; Minidoka, Idaho, and Topaz, Utah.

In September, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, introduced similar legislation in the Senate. It is before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Floyd Mori, who represents the Japanese American Citizens League in Washington, said the group was "extremely pleased" with the House action and hoped the Senate would follow quickly.

"We want to preserve the sites in order that the lesson during World War II will not be repeated again," he said. "The camps serve as a living testimony that our government values civil liberties and ... that the nation will learn from this experience and assure that ethnicity is not a reason for denying civil liberties."

But the National Park Service opposes the bill, citing the work it is already doing to memorialize the Japanese-American internment.

BILL OPPOSED

Michael D. Synder, acting deputy director for the National Park Service, told the House Resources Committee in April that the agency's budget should not pay nonfederal entities for costly restoration and other projects at the camp sites.

Between 1942 and 1945, about 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in 17 government assembly locations and then in 10 internment camps.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, about 10,000 people in Hawai'i were investigated and 1,500, mostly Americans of Japanese ancestry, were detained on all of Hawai'i's main islands, principally in camps at Sand Island and Honouliuli, said Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai'i.

APOLOGY MADE

On the Mainland, the internees came from 100 areas in Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington declared as prohibited for Americans of Japanese ancestry.

The U.S. government has since apologized and paid reparations.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, said preserving the sites will give future generations the opportunity to learn the lessons of a national tragedy.

"That becomes increasingly important as memories of World War II fade into the past and the nation faces renewed challenges to the rule of law and constitutional rights which were violated wholesale by wartime internment," he said.

Case called the internment "a tragic and shameful chapter in our history, replete with misunderstanding by too many and courage by too few."