WASHINGTON — It was 65 years ago when Shoichi Hamai was one of thousands of people diagnosed with Hansen's disease in Hawai'i and shipped off to a remote island colony to live his life in isolation. Yesterday, he asked for an official remembrance for the members of his unique community.

"I was sent to Kalaupapa when I was 15 years old," he said in a statement prepared for the House Resources national parks subcommittee. "It is good to remember those who have suffered and have died in Kalaupapa."

A group of patients, relatives and friends — the Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa — told the panel they want a monument on Moloka'i's Kalaupapa peninsula, where the colony was located, so the world will remember the suffering endured by about 8,000 people who were forcibly relocated there from 1866 to 1969.

Most of those who died in Kalaupapa were buried in unmarked graves. Hamai is one of a small number of people who still live there.

Kuulei Bell, president of the group and a Hansen's disease patient since 1938 at Kalaupapa, said in a written statement that a monument is a big part of the colony's history, and would help her family know about her and their grandparents who were also there.

"What we are asking is for our history and for our children to know what happened to our many patients," she said. "How sad it was for my mother who ... could not even touch me because of the disease — and I could not even touch my children."

A proposed monument would contain the names of the exiles. But the National Park Service, which would be responsible for the monument, is against a bill to create it, sponsored by Hawai'i Democratic Reps. Ed Case and Neil Abercrombie.

"There is no clear consensus among current patients and their family members about the need or desirability of such a memorial," said Daniel N. Wenk, the Park Service's acting associate director for park planning, facilities and lands.

Case said Congress should not rule out the possibility of federal funding. And, he said, patients and relatives agree that a memorial would be fitting.

"With this bill, we try to bring some closure to one of the most tragic chapters in the history of Hawai'i ... the forced relocation and isolation of 8,000 human beings suspected of suffering from Hansen's disease," Case told the subcommittee.

Piolani Motta, co-chair of the monument committee for Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa, said her grandmother developed the disease, formerly known as leprosy, at age 14 in 1906 and was sent to Kalaupapa.

Motta said that at her mother's birth in 1906, she was taken away from her grandmother, who died in 1917, and sent to live in an orphanage.

Motta said that as she grew up, her mother always told her and her five siblings that their grandmother was dead to steer them away from questions.

"In my mother's time, these things were never talked about and were kept secret to protect themselves and their families from the 'fear and shame' associated with leprosy," Motta said. "It was heartbreaking to know that my mother never knew her mother."

Once she learned of her grandmother, Motta said she went to Kalaupapa to find out more but wasn't able to find her grave.

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.