Education & Freedom at Minidoka: The Diary of the Superintendent Arthur Kleinkopf

The book, released in early 2026, is comprised of Kleinkopf’s near-daily diary about his experience as an overseer of the student-teacher program at Minidoka and, later, the Superintendent of Education. His entries, made between September 1942 and the camp's closure in 1946, recorded everything from the conditions of the latrines — “a health menace" with “flies everywhere and the odor is bad” — to the emotional toll living in the camp took on those incarcerated, who had nothing to see “except tar paper covered barracks, sage brush, and rocks.”

In an excerpt, Kleinkopf writes: “The impact of emotional disturbances as a result of the evacuation procedures, plus this dull, dreary existence in a desert region must give these people a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and despair which we on the outside do not and will never fully understand.”

The book also features a foreword by Kleinkopf’s grandson, Kurt Kleinkopf, an essay from Neil King, the first Superintendent of the Minidoka National Historic Site, and historic images of incarcerees and War Relocation Authority staff.