The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange

by Jan Jarboe Russell

  Within two hours of the bombing: Author interview and SF-U.

  Sumi’s father’s first name: SF-U.

  In the three months: Author interview and SF-U.

  Chapter Two: Eleanor vs. Franklin

  My account of the conflict between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt over the internment of German, Japanese, and Italian immigrants drew from numerous biographies of the Roosevelts. Particularly helpful for an understanding of their disagreements during the war was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s renowned book No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

  Kenneth S. Davis’s FDR: The War President (New York: Random House, 2000) helped provide context for larger events of the war through Roosevelt’s eyes. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by H. W. Brands, a fellow Texan, was brilliantly readable, and offered further insight into how Roosevelt prosecuted the war. FDR: A Centenary Remembrance (New York: Viking Press, 1982), published on the hundredth anniversary of Roosevelt’s death, by Joseph Alsop, the celebrated journalist and columnist, offered personal details of both Eleanor and FDR. Alsop’s prose was so evocative I could almost hear FDR’s voice as I read the famous line “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  The best secondary sources for Hoover’s role in executing the internment policies were found in Athan Theoharis’s The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (New York: Temple University Press, 1988), particularly chapters 8 and 9, and Curt Gentry’s J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). Both Theoharis and Gentry relied on FBI memorandums and government correspondence. In addition, a chilling secondary source was FBI case file 62-62735, the four-thousand-page file that the FBI maintained on Eleanor Roosevelt from the 1940s until the end of her life.

  In this chapter, those with direct experience of the Crystal City camp—internees and children of internees—provided invaluable information. As an example, John Eric Schmitz, a history professor at Northern Virginia Community College, is the son of John Schmitz, who was interned in Crystal City for three years with his family. While a doctoral student at American University in Washington in 2007, John Eric Schmitz wrote a 638-page dissertation about the internment of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during World War II. For my research, Schmitz generously shared his thesis, which cites numerous secondary sources and a wealth of archival documents. I have noted the use of his sources below.

  Neither Ingrid nor Sumi: Kearns Goodwin, 295–96; and Davis, 714.

  “Let’s be honest”: Kearns Goodwin, 296.

  Dressed in a miner’s clothes: Alsop, 129.

  Even in the aftermath: Kearns Goodwin, 296–97.

  Although history would later prove her right: Brands, 697.

  California’s attorney general, Earl Warren: Brands, 657; Francis Biddle, In Brief Authority (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 214.

  Later, Dewitt: Stetson Conn, Guarding the United States and Its Outposts (Washington: Center of Military History, 2000), as cited in Schmitz, 358.

  Their fears: Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Sabotage (New York: Random House, 2002), and the Black Tom incident cited in Schmitz, 43.

  On February 15, 1933: Brands, 279.

  But it wasn’t just Roosevelt: Headlines cited in Schmitz, 96.

  On that day, Roosevelt called Hoover: Gentry, 205; and Theoharis, Boss, 172.

  On August 24: Theoharis, Spying on America, cited in Schmitz, 107.

  By the end of the year: ER.

  Eleanor made no secret: Gentry, 288–306.

  On September 1, 1939: P. Scott Corbett, Quiet Passages (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1978), chapter 1, “The Rules of War and the Special Division.”

  In September 1941: Max Paul Friedman, Nazis & Good Neighbors (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1.

  On Sunday, December 7, 1941: Biddle, 50–53; and Kearns Goodwin, 292–94.

  At noon the following day: Kearns Goodwin, 295.

  Prior to Pearl Harbor: Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Francis Biddle, November 5, 1941; and Biddle to Eleanor, NA2, RG 60.

  Three days later: Mangione, 319–20; and Biddle, 53.

  “Please tell the President”: February 2, 1942, James H. Rowe Jr. Papers, Assistant to the Attorney General Files, Enemy Control Unit, Box 33, NA2.

  When the novelist: Hazel Rowley, Franklin and Eleanor (New York: Picador, 2010), 257.

  Chapter Three: Strangers in a Small Texas Town

  Since I live in San Antonio, I am familiar with the terrain and history of South Texas. I made several reporting trips to Crystal City. The tiny train station is in ruins. The small public library, located next to City Hall on E. Dimmit Street, has a few files about the camp. For years, no official acknowledgment was made of its role in World War II. However, on November 11, 2011, McWhorter, of the Texas Historical Commission, installed eight panels on the site that describe where the internees lived, the repatriation process, and camp life. A group of more than twenty-five former internees, Germans and German Americans, returned to the site for the dedication. During interviews over two days, many of the former children of the camp provided useful perspectives of the campsite as it was seventy years ago.

  While documents from the National Archives provided a chronology for the site selection of Crystal City, I owe a particular debt to J. Barton Harrison, the son of Earl Harrison, for his insight into how his father approached complex problems. In a delightful interview at his home in Philadelphia, Barton described his father’s unflagging work ethic and political savvy. He generously shared some of Harrison’s letters and documents and newspaper accounts of his career. Barton also explained the importance of Jerre Mangione, an Italian American who was special assistant to Harrison and a frequent guest in the Harrison household. Barton directed me to Mangione’s memoir, An Ethnic at Large (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, Syracuse University Press edition, 2001). Mangione was a brilliant observer of human behavior, and I have shamelessly milked his memoir for key moments in the lives of both Harrison and O’Rourke.

  In the early days of my research, I found little information about O’Rourke, officer in charge of Crystal City. Many of the internees I interviewed remembered him as good-natured, but offered few concrete details. In August 2012, I petitioned the INS for his personnel file, which provided biographical information as well as his work history. Through records on Ancestry.com, I located O’Rourke’s granddaughter Pamela Smith, who lives in Philadelphia, not far from Barton Harrison’s home. Though Smith never met her grandfather, her mother, Joan, told her many stories about O’Rourke. The characterization of O’Rourke as a lonely man who was a melancholic drinker came from Pamela and was confirmed by former internees. His granddaughter generously shared photographs of O’Rourke.

  in a place so strange: HNCC.

  Sixty-five million: Texas Almanac, 2010–11, 30–41.

  One hundred and twenty: Hugh Hemphill, The Railroad of San Antonio and South Central Texas (San Antonio: Maverick Publishing Company, 2006), 72–73.

  The train: Ibid., 74.

  Twelve years later: Author interview, Jose Angel Gutierrez, July 29, 2012; and description from Jose Angel Gutierrez, The Making of a Civil Rights Leader (Houston: Arte Publico Press, University of Houston, 2005).

  From his house: Author interview, Barton Harrison, August 4, 2012; and details from an essay by Lewis M. Stevens, “The Life and Character of Earl G. Harrison,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, March 1956.

  In 1938: Friedman, 1–8.

  Once the Latin Americans: Mangione, 322.

  In the wake: Earl Harrison, Officers Handbook: A Guide for Proper Conduct and Relationships with Aliens and the General Public, NA1, RG85, Box 1, entry file 276.

  With Harrison: Paul F. Clark, “Those Other Camps: An Oral History Analysis of Japanese Alien Internment During World War II” (thesis, C
alifornia State University, Fullerton, April 25, 1980), Clark’s interview with Amy Stannard, 119–35.

  “We began”: Ibid., 124.

  “We hated”: Author interview, Gutierrez.

  It wasn’t only rock-ribbed Texas: Norman Moss, 19 Weeks: America, Britain, and the Fateful Summer of 1940 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 243.

  At that time: Marian Jean Barber, “How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Became Anglo: Race and Identity in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands” (dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, May 2010), 324–28.

  Surveying the site: HNCC, 1.

  The land itself: Author interview, Gutierrez.

  Harrison had many practical issues: HNCC, 3–5.

  A precedent existed: Friedman, 142–43.

  In Crystal City: HNCC, 3.

  Harrison’s trip: Stevens, 592.

  He was born: Ibid., and author interview, J. Barton Harrison.

  The heroine in the play: Stevens, 593.

  Biddle agonized over the passage: Biddle, 110.

  It was a grim sell: Mangione, 271.

  Convinced that aliens: Ibid.

  To honor Harrison: Ibid., 275–80.

  Harrison was praised: Biddle, 112.

  When Biddle became attorney general: Ibid., 113.

  “Dear Earl”: This Biddle letter and Harrison’s response provided by J. Barton Harrison, as were all of the newspaper articles.

  “Dear Joe”: Biddle, 114.

  thirty-five German families: HNCC, 1–6.

  He, his wife, and three children: Collaer to Earl Harrison, December 21, 1942, NA1, RG85, Box 1.

  Before leaving Ellis Island and Tennessee: HNCC, 6; and memo to Harrison, NA1, RG85, Box 1.

  Both the internees and Collaer’s staff: Telephone interview with Christine Collaer Kite in April 2012; and “Reconnecting to Father’s ‘Mistake’ as Fort Missoula Commandant,” Missoulian, June 29, 2010.

  Little by little: NA1, RG85, Box 2.

  A tall man with wavy hair: O’Rourke’s INS personnel file, obtained from the US Department of Justice.

  O’Rourke was lonely: Author interview, Pam Smith, August 12, 2012; and US census data, 1920, Joseph L. O’Rourke and Loretta M. O’Rourke.

  One night: Mangione, 331–34.

  “Effective this date, the auditorium”: Administrative order no. 9 from O’Rourke, NA1, RG85, Box 1.

  Harrison paid: Mangione, 332.

  Chapter Four: Internment Without Trial

  Most of the material in this chapter was derived from personal interviews. Over multiple interviews, the three living children of Mathias and Johanna Eiserloh—Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi—entrusted me with their stories, many of them painful, and I am grateful to them. The reporting of the travails of the family required back-and-forth checking among the three.

  When the three offered differing views, I referenced the primary documents—Eiserloh’s FBI file and his Special File—and then considered the views of each to arrive at the truth. For instance, the attack on Johanna is drawn from the perspective of Ingrid and Lothar, who had memories of the event. Ensi’s perspective was useful as well. Although she was an infant in 1942, she later discussed the episode with her mother.

  On the morning: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

  After Ingrid: ME.

  According to one State Department memo: SWPD, RG59, Box 129.

  In her first effort: ME.

  One day Ingrid: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

  The FBI file: ME; and author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.

  “Americans love swimming pools”: Lothar Eiserloh.

  The morning: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

  Later, Johanna: Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh, separate interviews.

  Meanwhile, Mathias: ME.

  While in Idstein: Author interview, Ensi Eiserloh.

  During the war, Roosevelt: SWPD, Box 70, NA2, RG59, as cited by Schmitz, 617.

  On March 4, 1942: SF-E.

  By the time: Ingrid Eiserloh.

  While his wife and children: Friedman, 140–42; and Krammer, Undue Process, 137–38.

  The report on Mathias at Stringtown: ME and Jacobs and Fallon, Documents.

  In his book: Friedman, 141.

  On April 8, 1943: SF-E.

  Chapter Five: A Family Reunion

  Mathias Eiserloh’s FBI file provided solid footing for this chapter. The many details of Eiserloh’s status changes were documented, as were Johanna’s petition to the government for “voluntary internment” in Crystal City and for repatriation.

  July 8, 1943: ME.

  From her hard: Ingrid Eiserloh.

  Finally Johanna: ME.

  Prior to the trip: ME. Eleanor Neff’s letter was mailed from the Cuyahoga County Relief Bureau in Cleveland to the INS on June 2, 1943.

  Ingrid remembered that: Ingrid Eiserloh.

  As Johanna: ME.

  The camp at Kenedy: Texas State Historical Association, “Kenedy Alien Detention Camp.”

  Johanna had also filed: ME.

  Mathias was not: Ibid.

  The reunion: ME, memo on July 5, 1943, from Ivan Williams, officer in charge of the camp in Kenedy to the chief liaison officer in Crystal City.

  At the entrance: Lothar Eiserloh.

  Three hundred and seventy-five Germans: HNCC, 5.

  Dr. Symmes F. Oliver: The section on Oliver draws from Louis Fiset, “Medical Care for Interned Enemy Aliens: A Role for the US Public Health Service in World War II,” American Journal of Public Health, October 2003.

  Chapter Six: The Hot Summer of ’43

  My account of the troubles in the German section drew heavily from my own research at the National Archives, as well as a large collection of internment documents collected by Arthur D. Jacobs, a former internee who now lives in Tempe, Arizona, a retired major in the US Air Force. Jacobs was born in America and was interned in Crystal City as a twelve-year-old boy with his family. He and his family were exchanged into Germany in 1945. His memoir, The Prison Called Hohenasperg (USA: Universal Publishers, 1999), describes his wartime experience. Jacobs has worked for many years with Joseph E. Fallon, his coeditor, to produce a five-volume index of documents titled World War Two Experience: The Internment of German-Americans. This index, which continues to be updated, is an invaluable resource.

  During the summer of 1943, as Jacobs’s documents and others reveal, camp officials struggled to distinguish German internees who held patriotic feelings for Germany but were not a security threat to America from Germans who were Nazis. According to Jacobs and Eb Fuhr, a principal character in this chapter, by that summer the term Nazi had become synonymous with German. For a variety of reasons—Germans had never been a minority in the United States, their anger at the FBI for their arrest and internment—many German nationals were hardened and labeled troublemakers by O’Rourke and his staff.

  I appreciate Jacobs, Fuhr, and other German internees for offering their perspectives.

  Only three months before: NA1, RG85, Box 27.

  “We believe”: Complaint letter to Collaer, NA1, RG85, Box 28.

  In response: Collaer to Harrison, NA1, RG85, Box 27.

  The Japanese: HNCC, 7–8.

  At the time of the flag: Author interview, Dr. Heidi von Leszcynski, November 11, 2011.

  Upon arrival: NA1, RG85, Box 27.

  In June 1943: FK.

  The Jacobis: NA1, RG85, Box 58; and Jacobs and Fallon.

  Despite Kuhn’s: FK.

  What the presidency: FK. Given the dramatic nature of the extortion attempt of Helena Rubinstein, the following additional details are offered: On March 9, 1942, an agent in New York filed a report about an informant who claimed he acted under orders from Kuhn, a prisoner at Dannemora, to extort Rubinstein. The informant was a former prisoner with Kuhn who had recently been released. On April 16, 1942, agents filed a second report that described the interview with Rubinstein in her apartment.

  In Crystal City: FK.

  Eberhard E. Fuhr:
Author interview, Eb Fuhr; as well as Fuhr’s account in Stephen Fox, America’s Invisible Gulag (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000), 51–56, 257–61.

  A confidential memo: “Circular to All Officers and Employees,” NA1, RG85, Box 1.

  O’Rourke’s task: HNCC, 5.

  As a productive: Texas Historical Commission, Crystal City.

  However, Johanna: Author interview, Ensi Eiserloh.

  One afternoon, Ingrid and Lothar: Author interviews.

  Provisions of the Third Geneva Convention: NA1, RG85, Box 6.

  “Selling these employees”: HNCC, 5.

  “No living thing”: Mangione, 329.

  In August: NA1, RG85, Box 6.

  Chapter Seven: “Be Patient”

  Contextual knowledge of how the Eiserloh and other families weathered the continuing conflicts in Crystal City emerged from primary documents at the National Archives and interviews. This chapter owes a particular debt to chapter 19, “Nazis and Troublemakers in the Internee Camps,” in Krammer, Undue Process.

  One of: HNCC, 24.

  All through: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

  Kazuko Shimahara; Karen Riley, Schools Behind Barbed Wire (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 58.

  on September 7, 1943: HNCC, 25; and interviews with Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh.

  By October: FK.

  By December: NA1, RG85, Box 3.

  “Imitation Dictator”: Ibid.

  That fall: “Be Patient,” Harrison, Officers’ Handbook, 18.

  Kuhn was number 68: NA2, SWPD, RG59, Box 69, as cited by Schmitz, 519.

  Das Lager: Jacobs and Fallon, Documents.

  O’Rourke wrote: NA1, RG85, Box 3.

  The May 6, 1944: Jacobs and Fallon.

  Kreuzner threatened: NA1, RG85, Box 17.

  Mathias once went: Ibid.

  Only forty-nine years old: O’Rourke’s INS personnel file.