His strategy: HNCC, 9.
At first, Fujii: Ibid., 17.
Chapter Eight: To Be or Not to Be an American
A small group of academics have focused on the infamous work of the Special Division within the Department of State, which negotiated exchanges between the United States and Japan and the United States and Germany. My baseline for understanding the complexities of the exchanges from Crystal City came from two books.
The first, Quiet Passages: The Exchange of Civilians Between the United States and Japan During the Second World War (Kent, OH: Kent University Press, 1987), is by P. Scott Corbett, a professor of history at Ventura College in California. This book, which relied on primary documents of the Special Division, tells the story from the point of view of the United States. At the time, the diplomatic records of Japan were not yet available to researchers. More than ten years later, Bruce Elleman, an associate professor at the US Naval War College, found new documentation in Tokyo. His book, Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941–45 (New York: Routledge, 2006), utilized primary documentation from both American and Japanese sources.
For the section on the American School, I relied on primary documents from the National Archives, a 1979 oral history of R. C. Tate, superintendent of schools. In addition, Karen Riley’s first-rate book about the three schools in Crystal City, Schools Behind Barbed Wire: The Untold Story of Wartime Internment and the Children of Arrested Enemy Aliens (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), provided useful description of curricular and extracurricular activities, and insight into Tate, the teachers, and the students.
In addition to the thanks I owe to Sumi Utsushigawa for hours of interviews, I’m also grateful to her for sharing hundreds of copies of the Crystal City Chatter, a newsletter she has published from her home since 1980. Over the years, many internees in the camp have contributed primary documents and recorded their memories of internment in the Chatter. The issues of the newsletter provided irreplaceable insight into the lives of the children of the camp.
While fifteen-year-old: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.
At the New Jersey harbor: Corbett, 93; and Elleman, 146.
During the first: Corbett, 68.
Given the success: Elleman, 146–55; and Corbett, 72–95.
To their surprise: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.
Not far away: Author interview, Yae Aihara, March 23, 2011; and Densho Digital Archives, Japanese American Legacy Project, http://denso.org.
As the train: Yoji J. Matsushima, Crystal City Chatter 28 (December 1995).
In Heart Mountain: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa; and videotaped interview conducted by Leslie Burns in November 1997, deposited at the Institute of Texan Cultures.
Somewhere in Mississippi: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa; and Matshushima, Crystal City Chatter.
When the train stopped: Videotaped interview, Shoji Kanogawa, 1997, UTSA.
That first night: HNCC, 10.
It often: Ibid., 26.
By the time: Riley, 47; and State Department of Education, Summer School Report, 1945, NA1, RG85, Box 65.
R. C. (Robert Clyde): Riley, 44; Thomas Walls’s interview with Tate, February 21, 1979, UTSA, Institute of Texan Cultures; and HNCC, 25–30.
Over time: HNCC, 26.
“Yet the attitude”: Tate interview with Walls.
Some Japanese American students: Tai Uyeshima’s essay “The First Concentration Camp: Crystal City, Texas,” CC50, 26.
The September 1943: Ibid., 43.
From time to time: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa; and Riley, 105.
Like the other nisei: SF-U.
Chapter Nine: Yes-Yes, No-No
Fortunately, much useful documentation of the Japanese and Japanese American experience of internment is available. Useful interviews of both the Uno family and the Taniguchi family and other now-deceased Japanese and Japanese American internees have been collected by universities, the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, National Japanese American Society in San Francisco, and elsewhere. Particularly useful here were the Taniguchi family interviews, as well as the collection edited by Lawson Fusao Inada, Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2000).
After Pearl Harbor: Entire text of Roosevelt’s memo, Only What We Could Carry, 341.
The key word: Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy (New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1976), 136.
Mary Tsukamoto: Ibid., 141.
In Crystal City, the battle: Kay Uno Kanedo, 2010, Denso Digital Archives.
When war broke out: Yuji Ichioka, “The Meaning of Loyalty: The Case of Kazumaro Buddy Uno,” Amerasia Journal 23 (3) (1997): 47–59.
Kay Uno, the youngest: Kay Uno, “Pearl Harbor Remembered,” Only What We Could Carry, 31.
As Ernie felt: Letter from Stanley to Robert Uno, April 26, 1944, NA1, RG85, Box 190.
When Stanley wrote the letter: Essay by Edison Uno, CC50, 23.
The family: Interview with Izumi Taniguchi, March 2000, by Nancy Taniguchi for the Japanese American Historical Collection (JACL), archived at California State University, Fresno, 2–17.
On April 23, 1943: Weglyn, 219.
“Everything is”: Kearns Goodwin, 428.
In March 1943: Only What We Could Carry, 263.
While in Gila River: Taniguchi interview, 15–21.
Isamu and Sadayo: Alan Taniguchi, biographical summary of his parents, September 1995.
In a speech: Biddle, “Democracy and Racial Minorities,” December 14, 1943.
Chapter Ten: A Test of Faith
My account of the life of Yoshiaki Fukuda drew from his FBI file, which was heavily redacted, and his Special File, which contained many notations of his activities before and after his internment. In addition, Fukuda’s memoir, My Six Years of Internment: An Issei’s Struggle for Justice, published by the Konko Church of San Francisco in 1957, is a striking account that links his personal history with the political and religious events of his times. More than any other book that I have read about the experience of issei men during American internment, Fukuda’s memoir reveals their cultural values and the agonies of divided loyalty.
For an understanding of the Konko faith, founded in 1859 in Japan and which Fukuda brought to America in 1930, I am grateful to the Reverend Joanne Tolosa, the head minister of the Konko Church in San Francisco, who welcomed me there on several occasions and helped me understand the basic tenets of the faith. In addition, two other Konko ministers—the Reverend Masato Kawahatsu in San Francisco and the Reverend Alfred Tsuyuki in Los Angeles—illuminated aspects of the faith. The Konko religion was originally a Shinto sect but established its independence in 1859. However, anyone associated with the Shinto religion, a cornerstone for Japanese culture, was immediately arrested and interned by FBI agents in 1941.
I would like to express my appreciation to Fukuda’s four living sons—Nobusuke, Saburo, Hiroshi, and Koichi—who provided personal papers, religious tracts written by Fukuda, documents from Japan, and photographs taken during their internment.
All he could see: NA1, RG85, Box 50, and Fukuda, My Six Years, 22.
In his seat: Author interview, Nobusuke Fukuda, April 29, 2011, San Francisco.
“I came”: Fukuda, My Six Years, 40.
“The Issei”: Essay by Nobusuke Fukuda, Discover Nikkei, May 8, 2008.
In Missoula and Lordsburg: Fukuda, My Six Years, 68.
At 1:30 a.m. on January 27, 1944: NA1, RG85.
O’Rourke approached: Fukuda, memoir, 22.
Fukuda was born: Ibid., 122; and author interviews with Fukuda’s four sons Nobusuke, Saburo, Hiroshi, and Koichi.
Three years: The description of the send-off was found in an unpublished biography of Fukuda written in 1967 by Masayuki Fukibayashi, a schoolmate of Fukuda’s in Japan.
On December 7: YF; Fukuda memoir, 7.
On Monday, December 8: San Francisco Call-Bulle
tin.
Fukuda and the others: YF.
Her title: Ibid., and essay by the Reverend Fumio Matsui, 1981, 50th Anniversary, Konko Church, San Francisco.
At his hearing: YF.
The Konko religion: Author interview, the Reverend J. L. Tolosa, head minister, Konko Church, San Francisco.
A tall, lean: Author interview, Nobusuke Fukuda.
Shinko stayed: Fukuda, My Six Years, 49.
During Fukuda’s: Ibid., 52.
In Crystal City: SF-F.
Despite the order: Ibid.
On February 14: Ibid.
A report from the Red Cross: March 6, 1944, memo from Harrison to O’Rourke, NA1, RG85, Box 6.
On the morning of November: Fukuda, My Six Years, 55–62.
Chapter Eleven: The Birds Are Crying
As the flag controversy in the German section in the summer of 1943 illustrates the anger of German immigrant fathers, who realized the government—not them—controlled the lives of their children, two key events described in this chapter about the summer of 1944 revealed the helplessness of issei fathers.
When I first heard the accounts of what the Japanese American children in the camp refer to as the “prom disaster,” I didn’t understand why such a small event had such extraordinary consequences. After interviews with dozens of former internees, now elderly men and women, I began to recognize that the prom was yet another line in the sand: if the students said yes to the prom, it meant yes to America, and no to their issei parents. Again, the issue was loyalty.
This chapter relies on interviews with both German American and Japanese American internees. All of those interviewed vividly remembered the day that the two Japanese Peruvians drowned in the camp swimming pool. The account in this chapter is a compilation of the memories of many internees.
On the day in August 2012 when I stood in the reading room of the National Archives in Washington, DC, and pulled out the May 1944 love letters described in this chapter, I grasped the utter isolation of internment. The secret notes from the unhappily married Japanese American woman to her lover in Denver were written in tiny script and hidden beneath the letters’ postage stamps and discovered by camp censors. I elected not to use the names of the lovers. One line in particular became the central metaphor for the tragedies of that summer: “The birds are crying, too.”
In any other: HNCC, 27.
The battle: Letter from Fujii to O’Rourke, NA1, RG85, Box 3; and the prom incident also covered in Riley, 150–52.
O’Rourke’s answer: Letter from O’Rourke to Willard Kelly, INS, NA1, RG85, Box 4.
At school: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa Shimatsu.
Sumi’s friend: Author interview, Yae Kanogawa Aihara; and Aihara’s interview with the Densho Visual History Collection.
Nevertheless, on May 26, 1944: Ibid.
Yae’s teacher: This incident was also described by Yae’s brother Stogie Kanogawa in his videotaped interview with Leslie Burns, UTSA.
The following day: Letters from censor found at NA1, RG85, Box 3.
She was not alone: Ibid.
Maruko Okazaki: Ibid.
In May 1944: NA1, RG85, Box 17.
While O’Rourke: Author interview, J. Barton Harrison.
When in 1943: Washington Post, July 20, 1944.
“The only other”: Ibid.
On July 20, 1944: New York Times.
“Hats off ”: Washington Post, July 24, 1944.
A Japanese internee: Toriu’s note generously provided by Barton Harrison.
In August 1944 the hospital: NA1, RG85, Box 3; HNCC, 20–24; and also described in Alien Enemy Detention Facility (16mm camp film of Crystal City, Texas).
All that changed: The account of the deaths of the two girls was drawn from author interviews with Ty Nakamura, Alice Nishimoto, Sumi Utsushigawa, and Toni Tomita. The account from Bessie Masuda was found in an oral history, Texas Historical Commission. Medical records of their death, NA1, RG85, Box 50.
Chapter Twelve: Trade Bait
Interviews with Ingrid, Ensi, and Lothar Eiserloh, as well as other children from Crystal City who made the voyage from the port of New Jersey to the port of Marseille, formed the foundation of this chapter. The interviews with Bernard Levermann and Elizabeth Lechner, known as Suzy, confirmed the experience of the Eiserloh children. In addition, the Graber family story, located on the German American Internee Coalition website, provided additional insight into the particulars of the exchange.
Additional details came from chapter 20, “To Germany,” of Stephen Fox’s book America’s Invisible Gulag: A Biography of German American Internment & Exclusion in World War II (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), and from records in the special FBI file of Mathias Eiserloh.
As good-bye ceremonies: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.
Near the end: Krammer, Undue Process, 146.
The January 1945: Fox, 236–46.
Even on the morning: Letter from Mangels to his superior, January 9, 1945, ME.
Customs agents: Author interviews, Ingrid and Ensi Eiserloh.
On December 29: Fox, 237.
Finally, the day of reckoning: SF-E, memo from Martin to O’Rourke.
All day: Mangels letter, ME.
“It was”: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.
Security was: Krammer, Undue Process, 147.
By morning: Martin’s memo to O’Rourke, SF-E.
“Don’t take”: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh, confirmed by Ensi Eiserloh.
In his written report: SF-E.
The trains: Krammer, Undue Process, 147.
Johanna and Guenther: Author interview, Ensi Eiserloh.
Meanwhile, Lothar: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh; and description of the ship taken from M.S. Gripsholm: The FBI Files, 100-124687, Section 7.
As the ship: Author interviews, Ingrid and Ensi Eiserloh.
“If the ship”: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.
Once inside: Fox, 238.
One of Lothar’s: Ibid., 243–44. Like the Eiserloh children, in Ruth Becker’s account to Fox and to this author she described the voyage over, the net of mines, and the lack of food in Marseille.
“You’re making”: Author interviews, Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh.
The passengers: Author interviews, Bernard Levermann and Elizabeth Lechner; and the Graber family story, found on the German American Internee Coalition website, http://www.gaic.info.
Bert Shepard: Fox, 253–54.
Mathias needed: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.
Chapter Thirteen: The False Passports
Irene Hasenberg’s incredible story had its beginning for me in a list of names I found in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. An archivist had led me to this list when I asked how I might locate names of Jews who could have been exchanged. The museum had obtained the list directly from Nazi archives: the Centraal Registratiebureau voor Joden recorded the names of Jewish prisoners at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who were released in January 1945. A detailed accounting, it records full names, birth dates, birthplaces, and nationalities. Of the 190 persons listed, I was able at first to locate only one survivor: Irene Hasenberg. I later found a second survivor, Jacob Wolf.
On June 12, 2013, I traveled to the home of Irene Hasenberg (Butter) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was the birthday of Anne Frank, who was a friend of Irene’s in Amsterdam. Our intensive interview in Ann Arbor has been augmented by subsequent telephone conversations. Her generous narrative is the basis for this chapter. Also consulted was Irene’s lengthy interview of September 22, 1986, for the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, deposited at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.
Important for an understanding of US government policies regarding Jews during World War II was one book in particular: Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman’s FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013). Breitman and Lichtman offer a nuanced examination of Roosevelt’s response to the Jew
ish question. They conclude that he was a consummate politician who also acted at times to rescue Jews. This finding sheds light on how the exchange of Jews at Bergen-Belsen for German American internees such as Ingrid Eiserloh could even have taken place, considering how contrary it seems to the stated goals of exchanging US German residents for Americans behind enemy lines in Germany.
On the morning: Author interview with Irene Hasenberg, June 12, 2013. Other aspects of her family’s story recounted throughout this chapter come from this interview.
856 quota: Stephen Fox, Inside the Roundup of German Americans During World War II: The Past as Prologue (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2005).
Chapter Fourteen: Under Fire
The narrative of the Eiserlohs’ repatriation from Crystal City to Germany is a compilation of the memories of the three surviving Eiserloh children: Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi. They generously shared their experiences and thus enabled a clear picture of what that trauma entailed.
the moment: Author interviews, Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh.
Only two weeks: Cawthorne, 176–77.
On February 4: Brands, 793–802.
Over seven days: Rowley, 273.
When Franklin: Ibid., 286.
Meanwhile: The rest of this chapter is based on extensive interviews with Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi Eiserloh.
Chapter Fifteen: Into Algeria
A crucial addition in this chapter is the testimony of Jacob Wolf, whose name also appears on the list of exchanges from Bergen-Belsen. Irene Hasenberg Butter graciously put me in touch with Wolf, who lived in Brooklyn, New York. Wolf provided the majority of the material regarding his family and his experience of the exchange, although Irene also remembered key information.
A secondary source that provided useful historical context is Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman’s FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013).
Irene’s journey: Author interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter, June 12, 2013. Irene’s memories of the events, people, places, and her feelings about the time in Philippeville are my source for her experience there.
The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Page 37